A/N: Look we're back...Thanks as usual to Lady Starlight for her splendiferous work on this chapter. Now, let's blow stuff up.
Chapter 33: The Long Road Back
****************************Hogwarts*******************************
April 15, 2020
Harriet Weasley moved at a trot down the halls of the ancient school, panting slightly, as she looked back at a black-haired, green-eyed boy following at her heels. "Move your bum, Horry," she snapped, her voice oddly distant as her eyes seemed to see far beyond him, "we're late because of you."
He smiled slightly, and slid to a stop just as she did, "Come on, Harriet...it was just a little stinkbomb," he paused and leaned close. "You won't tell on me, will you?"
Harriet sighed softly, and looked to either side, she reached up and ran her fingers through her hair, "You know I won't, Horry," she replied very quietly. He grinned at her, and opened the door to DADA. Remus Lupin looked up, his eyebrow crooked as he turned to the door.
"Care to make an explanation as to why you are fifteen minutes late, Mr. Potter, Miss Weasley?" he asked just loudly enough for the rest of the class to hear. Several of the other first years tendered chattering laughs. Near the front, Emilia dropped her head to the desk where she sat between Xander and Caitlin. Caitlin looked back at her adopted brother, and leaned down to whisper something in her sister's ear. Emilia shook her head as Lupin watched Harriet and Horatio's slow headshakes, "Very well, that will be five points from Gryffindor from each of you. Take your seats if you please."
Lupin watched them take their seat at an empty table and turned back to a diagram on the board, "As you know, at least those of you who were on time," he added wryly, "that with the current...lack of control of Magical creatures by the Ministry, we must be on the lookout for creatures that would normally not be a great threat. Creatures, such as the wyvern and pendlecast, can and have attacked young people and even older humans. Wyverns, in particular, have been known to attack and carry off any animal up to seventy kilograms."
"Sir," Emilia asked as she raised her hand, "What about the larger, more dangerous animals, Dragons and the like." Several of the others made soft gasping sounds as the young wizards, especially the pure and half-bloods, thought about the permutations. As if planned, a large black shadow passed the window at that instant as Norbert swooped amidst the towers.
"Sir," Illea Johnson a rather timid Hufflepuff girl with oddly yellow eyes put in timidly, "what about...Norbert...he's a..."
Professor Lupin smiled and nodded to her, he proceeded to walk to the window just as Norbert swooped over the lake and dove with a happy roar, skimming his claws along the top of the water. Lupin looked back over the class, which seemed to be evenly split among those in awe and those in fear. He looked around the room, "Miss Potter," he said looking at the front table. Both Emilia and Caitlin looked up at him, and he shook his head slightly, "Emilia, if you please, would you enlighten the class on Norbert?"
Emilia nodded. As she responded with a voice almost identical to Hermione's at her age, Remus felt years and tragedies fall away for an instant. "Sir, Norbert is a member of the subspecies, Draconus Astralus, or Great Star Dragon as he is conventionally known. The species is believed to be related to the vastly more common Norwegian Ridgeback, which was actually the initial identification of Norbert. Norbert however, is at least twice the size of a more typical Norwegian at over thirty meters long. The breed also seems to be related in someway to the American Storm Dragon, as the charged plasma he can discharge is closest to the lightning that that breed uses as it's primary weapon."
"All of that is interesting, Potter," a smug voice drawled from the back of the class, Emilia looked back as a dark-haired boy in silver and green smirked at her, "But you didn't explain why he won't eat all the poor little kiddies."
"Mr. Prescott," Lupin said firmly, "I realize that you started the year at a school not known for it's...pleasantries, but normal courtesy allows us to let one finish their words, five points from Slytherin. Miss Potter, if you please," he motioned towards Emilia.
"As to why Norbert in particular won't hurt you," Emilia went on, her voice carrying just a slight edge, "Norbert is bound as the guardian dragon of Hogwarts. He is bound under geas to the defense of the school and her inhabitants...providing one is loyal to the school in turn of course. You could run up and punch him in the nose and he, probably, wouldn't eat you."
"Exactly, Emilia," Remus said, "Five points to Gryffindor. Now as to other, greater Dragons, the ones that are in the wild, the usual breeds in Europe, Norwegians, Hibernian Blacks, Hungarian Horntails, and others, can indeed be dangerous. However, Dragons being at least as intelligent as large cats and possibly in some cases of human level intelligence, do tend to not attack humans, as we tend to hunt them down and kill them if they do. Additionally, at this moment, there are very few wild Dragons, as most have either been captured or persuaded into military service on either side or are being used for breeding in one of the various enclaves, in Iceland or Newfoundland, or in our adversary's case in France and probably Wales. Wyverns, however, have become more and more of a problem. This is especially the case as there seems to have been a breeding program to create more vicious breeds, by our inhospitable neighbors down south, that have been released in the wild to harass us."
He shrugged, "They cannot be stopped with low level spells. The mastiff-sized or larger ones, that have been spotted recently, most likely will require something on the order of a level two Reductor or other appropriate offensive spell. A Stunner, at any normally attainable level, will only bounce off their hides, which show the same magical resistance as the Greater Dragons. An alternate technique would be to cast some sort of Distraction Charm and slip away unnoticed."
"Sir, what would we do we were to run across them and couldn't get away," Emily White said with a touch of anxiety, "What if they got into the grounds or the castle or something?"
Several of the other students sniggered, but Remus cut them off with a look, "Unlike several former professors here, I nor none of the ones that are here, will prevaricate on this...Hogwarts is the most safe place for you, right now, unless you can somehow escape to the Colonies, and even then I don't think that they will be safe forever...Make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, even when the Ministry still held sway, creatures much, much worse than any Wyvern transgressed these grounds. Do not make the mistake of thinking that it can never happen again."
**************************Edinburgh, Scotland*****************************
10:35 pm
The sky over the cracked and broken buildings of the once-modern Muggle city lit again with the rainbow traces of spellfire, the cyan of plasma bolts and the ruby of tracers. Dark shadows wheeled and turned overhead, as Dragons turned and fought above the rooftops. A ripping boom scattered broken glass as a half squadron of craft snapped overhead, pulling up sharply to avoid lines of green spellfire ripping towards them from a vast seething tide of black, filling a large open area that from the burnt and stunted trees might once have been a park.
A large ovoid tumbled from the broomplane, and a roaring line of fire enveloped the X'Sheen far below. Unearthly screams and brief flashes of ultraviolet appeared and vanished as fast as they came, as the dark company died.
Far above, on the roof of a half destroyed high-rise parking garage, a dark figure overlooked the fighting. He sighed, reaching up to scrub his fingers through his hair again and shook his head annoyedly, as he found the fabric of the black bandanna covering his head and keeping unkempt locks out of his eyes, in his way. He sighed again, frowning as a green bolt shot out of the darkness below and shattered the edge of the roof next to him. With a contemplative look, he turned his back on the fighting below, a pair of round lenses catching the light of the fighting, and walked back towards a vastly disparate group standing or kneeling around a small white orb that was projecting a diagram of the city into the air.
Harry glanced over at Hermione as she fell in beside him, not noticing or at least pretending not to notice the four, eight-foot, armored suits that kept pace with him several meters further out. He let his gloved hand brush hers for an instant as they headed towards the command group in the center of the roof; she glanced up at him, with a faint tight-lipped smile. Several overturned, wrecked cars had been moved by magic and enchanted armors to provide a rough barricade around the group, with at least a platoon of coal-black armors forming a rough perimeter around that, patrolling the edge of the roof and periodically letting loose with plasma or Reductors as a foolish Death Eater or an X'Sheen would show themselves. The large group that had just been taken out was the latest in a long series of attempts to destroy this particular concentration of liberators.
Harry looked around at the command team he had left for this, as somehow, he had found himself the highest ranking field officer, or at least the one everyone seemed to listen to, remaining from the Wizarding government, and possibly Britain as a whole. He looked around at three imposing suits of Armor, two carrying the stars and stripes and one with a curious red and gold phoenix overlaying a union jack. Another three smaller forms, two in the mottled, digital grey and black camouflage that had proven as effective against night vision spells as the their electronic counterparts and a single grey-cloaked woman bouncing a wand idly in the palm of her hand.
Seven days ago, it had been the last truly occupied Scottish city, as Malfoy's hordes had slowly contracted back into England proper, behind the ancient line demarking the two countries. On a rainy April morning, the grey overcast sky above the occupied Scottish city, had been torn asunder with the sound of sonic booms as the entire strike wings of the USS Tiamat and the HMS Merlin roared in from the North Sea and glowing, pulsing blue orbs fell from their bellies in their wake. Seconds later, all two hundred and eighty eight craft shot straight up almost achieving low orbit, before the entire northern side of the city lit with a blinding, white light. Dark, wet stone buildings vanished in waves of plasma, shattering the barracks of almost two regiments of Death Eaters along with a battalion of X'Sheen, gathered to head out to terrify the countryside again.
On the heels of the strike, terrible, reverberating roars shook the remaining Death Eaters to the core, and out of the dreary, rainy morning, giant winged shapes slipped over the landscape, raining fire and lightning down on an already shaken occupying force. The two divisions of Dragons, almost every Dragon that the resistance, American and free British forces could spare, brought terror to the Death Eaters, especially after their leader had told them that only he controlled the Dragons.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Death Eaters had broken and ran, fleeing from the Dragon onslaught. Columns of Death Eaters, running and finding themselves under anti-Apparation wards, were destroyed on the roads as the fighters returned. It had taken two days for the Death Eaters leadership to turn the troops around, even with the visceral examples of what treason to Malfoy cost thrown in front of them. But those two days had been crucial to the liberators. It had never been the intention of the liberating forces to destroy the city, that could have been done simply enough, but with the Death Eaters in disarray, the only resistance that Malfoy's legions could field for the two crucial days was a short regiment-sized force of X'Sheen.
That wasn't enough as almost a division of Powered Armor, wizards and Muggle troops, slipped into the city under the cover of Dragons and the P-99s of the two Carriers. They were establishing toeholds and starting to drive the dark legions back, back towards England and the ancient protective wards dividing England and Scotland. Wards powered by old magic that Malfoy, like his predecessor, disdained. They, with Malfoy's forces no longer maintaining a presence, could be reestablished and could hold the threat of X'Sheen and Dementor attacks to a minimum.
Since then, the fighting had degraded to a house-to-house, street-to-street affair. Carefully timed attacks by the allies had gone in against weak points in France, China and Egypt, holding back Malfoy's forces from reinforcing beyond what he already had in England and Scotland. This definitively proved that his legions, while vast, were not unlimited. That revelation, as it spread across the globe via old short wave receivers run on carefully horded batteries, Wizarding Wireless receivers set to pirate stations and on the wings of birds of every stripe, had set the interior of Malfoy's empire ablaze. Open rebellions in Siberia, India and Mongolia were tying up almost the entire Asian forces.
The few organized forces; consisting of the Americas, Australia and the free British, French and other units that had escaped intact more or less by being overseas; struck back. Though only the Americans had had large-scale Wizarding forces before the war started, the old Russian, Soviet era counter long gone in the cutbacks that had happened to both the Magical and mundane sides of that country. American naval forces joined by two British carriers converted to magical broom craft and dragons shattered Malfoy's entire invasion force for Australia, setting back any plans for possibly years. Marine powered armor had destroyed the headquarters of Malfoy's Southern African command in a blitz raid, and two days later, the same Raider division ripped apart the Hong Kong command post, before withdrawing, having decapitated that region of Malfoy's empire, at least until a replacement could be sent from London.
Harry nodded to himself as he considered it, and looked around at the group again. He opened his mouth to speak; just a soft POP came from behind him and to his right. At least six wands, two miniguns and a large, pintle-mounted battle wand pointed towards the quartet of new arrivals. Harry sighed softly, shaking his head, "They're mine," he said, just loud enough for the various members of the security platoon to hear. He watched as the smallest of the four, a five-foot, lithe form in a shadow suit stepped forward and pulled down a tight hood.
Ginny shook out her hair, grimacing as several knots caught in her fingers, "It's where we thought it was, Harry, they seemed to be holed up in one of the old towers on the south side of town." She gestured back towards a slight, black-haired girl being looked over carefully, by another inky-locked woman. "We got hit on the way out, but I think we made it seem that we were just a scouting patrol."
Parvati looked back at Harry and shrugged slightly, before she unzipped a hidden zipper on the front of Cho's shadow suit and spun her around, pulling the top of the suit down to expose a bloodstained t-shirt. Parvati cut away part of the shirt to expose a nasty slice along her partner's ribs and started to apply a steaming, yellow ointment from a pouch. "FUCK!" Cho howled, biting her lip to cut off any more sounds. She whimpered slightly as Parvati conjured a bandage around the wound, before she pulled the suit back up, and partially zipping it closed. "I'm fine," she hissed, watching the several people who had been watching her.
"Get your bum back to Hogwarts to have that looked at, Cho," Harry replied.
Cho looked at Parvati, "Go, hun, I'll be fine," she smiled slightly and made a small sign with her hands down low at her waist. Cho mouthed, "Love you," and vanished with a soft POP of Apparation. Parvati shrugged and started throwing her gear back in a conformal pack and slinging one strap back on.
"You can go too, Par, if you want to," Harry said softly. Several floors of a building a block away exploded as a torrent of green spellfire ripped from a force of suddenly-appeared X'Sheen, Harry turned as two dozen armored Marines bounded out of the night, pouring down spell fire until the X'Sheen stopped, dead, they never surrendered nor ran. One of the suits staggered back, collapsing on its back. A marine medic sprinted over, a suit picked him up in his arms and bounded from the rooftop of the garage to the building, setting down next to the fallen solider. The medic shook his head and Harry closed his eyes for an instant.
"No Harry," she replied slowly, "I'm your only combat qualified healer," she smirked slightly, "Are you going to carry Poppy around with you?"
"I should, she's not as much of a smartarse." He waved towards a tarp hung off the side of a wall. Several other wizards and Muggle combatants were standing around with slung weapons, waiting in line for a matronly woman in grey robes to hand out rations, "Get yourself something to eat or coffee, whatever." She nodded and headed off, and Harry looked back to the command group. "Alright we need to end this, we can't let this go on too much longer. Lucius will either find forces to reinforce with, or he'll get some stones and launch a counter somewhere else...like Hogwarts." He looked at one of the three camouflaged figures, "We can't get any more reinforcements can we, John?"
"No, Harry," John Simmons replied, shrugging. As it was, we snuck the Tiamat and Merlin and their attached groups and the Divisions with us here from the Pacific. The Royal Marines and ours are staying, but the carriers may or may not...it all depends. I doubt we can free up much more, our resources were already stretched when this started. We lost too much overseas when Malfoy's forces came out of nowhere. There's too much demand to 'Keep them home'."
"I know," Harry replied and looked to Ginny, "You think you can take a strike group back to their headquarters?"
"Yeah," she frowned, "But, why...".
"We knock them into disarray, we can drive a team to the Rune site, and activate Merlin's wall, the one that the Romans built...and that was used to keep the upper island from the lower. It'll make a great ward foundation, we already own Glasgow, as they abandoned it," Hermione said airily, waving her hand in a throwaway gesture.
"You've been hanging around Luna entirely too long, Hermione," Ginny replied... "How in the bloody hell are we going to establish a ward that size, the Australians did it with ten-thousand years of ancient magic, and just how many Wizards died establishing the Americans'?"
"Two hundred and twelve," John muttered, and shrugged slightly at the dazed expressions on several faces, "I worked security for one of the groups...they all sacrificed themselves."
Ginny's face paled under her freckles as several of the others only closed their eyes. The grey-cloaked witch, a liaison with the resistance that had laid the groundwork by getting the precise location of the Death Eater forces to the allies at the cost of several of their own, just nodded. She had seen her daughter and son killed in front of her, to gain her cooperation with Malfoy. Teresa Scott had watched Grindelwald kill her husband in the first war, had fought in the second, and had almost had her grandchildren taken along with her children in the third, the cost to win was almost immaterial to her by now.
Harry still cared, "I have no intention of sacrificing myself, or Hermione, or anyone else." He looked out over the city, "We have something that they didn't...we have Hogwarts."
Harry reached up and touched an ear as expressions ranging from suddenly enlightened to perplexed to slightly smug lit the faces around him, "You there, Keeper?"
"Yeah, Leo," Ron's soft voice came over the wireless in several ears and in the helmets of the armors.
"We're doing a Riddle, Keeper," Hermione replied over the sound of combat in the background wherever Ron and Luna were and on the rooftop, "decapitation strike." She looked to Ginny and motioned towards her ear.
"Keeper, Alleycat, grid 773 by 456, over," she said, watching as the rest took notes or started to lean over a projection of the city one of the suits was providing. "Estimate one company of X'Sheen warriors providing outer perimeter, another of wizard to warrior class Death Eaters, with possibly one or two Mage class."
Ron sighed, "Harry, how are you wanting to play it?"
"Off the cuff, mate, sorry. John, take your team and see if you can get in position to target the X'Sheen for a fast mover strike?" He nodded, and Harry turned to the single suit with a modified Union Jack, "Major."
"Sir."
"Take your battalion, and hold move it here covertly, move under stealth," Harry pointed to a spot on the map about 2 kilometers from the hidden headquarters of the remaining Death Eater forces in Scotland, "and hold it. We'll either need you in a hell of a hurry, or I need you to drop in here...if we take out the leadership, you can drop behind their lines and roll them up between you and Marshall's'," he waved towards one of the American suits, "forces."
"Ron we'll meet up at 455, in that abandoned department store, should provide cover for us to form up." Harry reached out and grabbed Hermione's hand, slowly threading his fingers through hers. "We go in two hours, ladies and gentlemen, let's get it done." He took a breath and vanished. A beat later, every non-armored presence except the cloaked woman and the one handing out rations vanished, either directly or as a wizard partner grabbed them and Apparated them away.
The British Major gave a jaunty salute to his American counterpart, nodded to three other suits and jumped off the roof in a three story bound, along with four escorts. The suits shimmered and vanished from sight as they moved. Around the area two hundred more suits rose into the air and vanished, moving quickly on the way towards their ordered rendezvous.
******************************Hogwarts**********************************
April 16, 2020
12:05 am
Seven children, sat huddled, clinging to each other in the darkness, lit only by the light of a small fire lit in the grate to give some measure of security. They sat together, for once not worrying about appearances at all as they sat awaiting some word of their parents, every single one of them feeling years old memories rushing to the fore.
An eighth, older figure stood near the portrait hole, watching the rest. She watched as a younger version of herself, only with hair the color of the flames in the hearth, cuddled up next to her black-haired sister, who in turn was sitting quite close to a brown-haired, dark-eyed boy, whose eyes seemed to reflect the lights of the flames like a cat's.
Makaila smiled tightly as she watched one of the 'Gryffindor Seven' get up from the tight clump on the couch, her hair changing colors kaldescopically, and grabbed a blanket from a neighboring couch. She sat back down with the rest, and pulled the blanket over the rest of them, even though by rights they should not need it in the middle of Scotland this time of year, even in the Highlands. Makaila took one last look at them, a gold badge glinting on the chest of her robes, before she turned and walked out of the portrait hole, to go on a patrol that she really would rather not go on. She would much rather huddle with the rest, but duty demanded otherwise.
Caitlin and Emilia watched their sister go out of the corner of their eyes before they slid even tighter together, and Abigail and Harriet, pushed in as well, the four of them along with Xander sharing a space on the couch that three or four might normally take up. They all sat, looking down at a shared DADA text, even though none of them had actually read a word in an hour.
Elliot and Horatio sat on the floor in front of them with a chessboard between them. Horatio had his back against the couch next to Harriet's legs; she would periodically lean forward and give him advice gleaned from years of watching her father. Elliot had long ago given up trying to get her to stop, so he just ignored her. Horatio reached out and took a sip of the hot chocolate that a certain, green-eyed house elf had delivered earlier and sighed, pondering his next move.
They continued to pretend for a time longer, as the clock ticked away the minutes in the corner, before a tremulous voice spoke up, "Do...do you think Mum and Dad are alright?" Caitlin's chin trembled slightly as she looked over at Emilia. The rest of the kids grew absolutely silent, hardly even breathing as they waited an answer.
Emilia swallowed and caught the eyes of her twin for a long moment; he shook slightly as he dropped his eyes from hers. A small hand reached forward from the couch and grabbed his shoulder, as Harriet leaned forward to say something to him, to share a quiet word. "I...don't know, Cat," Emilia replied after a moment, "I hope so."
"I'm scared, Em," the girl replied, and looked at the other young witches and wizards with a tremulous expression, afraid to admit her weakness.
"Me too," Emilia admitted as she leaned forward to give the girl a hug, and continued to watch the flames dance in the hearth.
**********************Edinburgh, Scotland************************
12: 30 am
Harry watched as the flames danced in the shell of an old, wrecked BMW across the way, like a large, odd, kettle stove. He sighed, closing his eyes as he felt a smaller hand work its way into his, and a head fall to his shoulder. What do you think that the kids are doing, Mione? Harry asked as he continued to look out of the shattered window of the old Muggle department store, where behind them, Harry could hear the muted movements of his teams as they prepared for the assault.
Hermione shrugged, as she gave his hand one last squeeze before she stepped away, checking the fit of her sword in its sheath, and drew both wands before slipping them back in their sheaths alongside her thigh. She checked the chamber of her pistol and twisted the suppressor on before reholstering it behind her back. Probably all huddled together pretending they are not afraid to the rest of the tower...Let's go Harry, I want to go home.
Harry gave her a tight smile, and grabbed the back of her head, bending it forward. He kissed her hair, Let's go cause rampant properly damage, Love.
But, Harry, we don't have a bed here...Hermione replied, utterly innocently, and he laughed softly. She followed him as she and Harry moved back towards the small group congregating around a small table, slowly packing away their toys around their persons.
Harry looked around at the small team that would be entering the Death Eater's Scotland headquarters, most of them he had known since he was a teenager, "Let's go, Hermione and I, along with Cordy, Sirius, and Remus," he waved generally in the direction of the recently arrived from Hogwarts, reinforcements, "we'll do the entry...fast and silent. Ron, Luna, Ginny, Neville, Tonks, Draco, you have overwatch. Parvati, you hang back with them." He reached up and touched his ear, "Surfer, are you in position?"
"Yeah, Leo," a soft, whispered, Californian drawl answered in their ears, "The Tiamat's wing is holding just over the horizon, with the Merlin's on close support in the city." An orange-white explosion lit the sky to the north, as if in illustration to his point, "I have my team in position, we can lay beacons on the X'Sheen, they are in echelon to the north of the objective, about a half klick out...Boss...if they drop on them, it could get you in there."
"Make sure they don't, John," Harry replied, "my wife would probably kick your arse if it messed up her hair." Hermione punched him in the shoulder. "Keeper will have the call on the timing of the strike. The clock has started, we go in ten, people." Without a word, the room emptied in a series of soft POPs.
A dark company composed of masked and unmasked Death Eaters stood in and around the ruins of the Babcock Tower, a thirty-story monolith that had once held the company headquarters of one of the world's foremost Biotechnology companies. None of the high-tech computers, or phones, or lab equipment had ran in years, indeed, the only facilities still in use, were the various labs, whose stainless steel countertops and assorted glassware had been shanghaied for the use of Malfoy's Potion Masters assigned to the area.
At the moment, however, only the combat forces remained, Malfoy's Potions Masters, Healers and other auxiliaries having been withdrawn back to London for something else, some grand purpose that was rumored to be the key to the war. Grangle Ortega had heard all of that before, he thought, as he looked out the shattered fragments of a fifteenth story window at the flashing colors of the fighting far below, and out in the city.
Ortega was the fourth commander of the Scottish Holdings in the last two years; his immediate two predecessors had been executed by Michelle Prichart, for incompetence, or rather she drained them for a snack. The first commander, and the one who had held the country the longest from the fall of Great Britain until his fall, Gregor Anderson, had been tortured to death by Malfoy himself after Potter's forces had taken and destroyed the school that Delores Umbridge had ran up until her capture. Ortega knew that a similar fate awaited him, that is, if he did not hold this city.
"When will Lord Malfoy's forces arrive from London?" he snapped, turning from the window.
A smallish Death Eater, with Captain's pips on his collar looked to the side as several other officers slowly edged their way out of the line of fire. "Two legions of X'Sheen will arrive in the morning-"
"Are there no, human, forces available," Ortega hissed, his fists flexing at his side. He moved from the window to stand over a large, lit map table that held a map of Edinburgh and the surrounding countryside. Small glowing arrows filled the map, in reds and blues. A fat arrow in red was pointing from the north, directly at a crosshatched circle indicating their current position. Small images of red and blue dragons slid over the map, with occasional flitting sparks as observers reported sightings of American and British fighters attacking his forces. Far to the south, at the very edge of the map, a thick blue arrow approached, but slowly, too slowly. He fingered the map, "Do we have any idea where Potter's seventh armor is? Those damn accursed suits have caused too much damage already...for that matter, where the BLOODY FUCK IS POTTER!" He swept his arm across the table sending cups of stale coffee, overflowing ashtrays and the remnants of dinners to the floor.
"We do not know, sir," a sheepish voice came from behind him.
His hand slipped down and knuckles tightened on a sheathed wand. He took a breath, "Well then...FIND HIM!" A scurrying answered his shout and he dropped his head, planning already how he would smuggle his ill-gotten fortune out of Malfoy's territories.
"Go," Harry muttered, and around the tower, an explosion of hidden activity occurred.
To the north, overlooking a large concentration of black figures, a concentration so dense that light itself seemed to vanish, even in the night vision goggles and enchantments that the Allied forces were using, a half-dozen wraith-like shadows stirred. The bombed-out parking garage, filled with rusting hulks overlooked the large, cleared area around the Babcock tower, where the outer defenses, at least a company of X'Sheen warriors, but very possibly two stirred, waiting for the attack they knew was coming.
They had no idea.
"Confirm, Leo, be advised, we are launching the strike now," Simmons said, the sound audible only inches away from a large, man-sized clump of what appeared to be only a bundle of rags. The bundle of rags shifted, as a hood was pulled back, and Simmons slipped his head over the edge of the berm surrounding the parking lot. Several meters away, another head, then five more appeared, two rising up enough to slip the muzzles of rifles over the edge, while a third peered down through Omniocculars at the crowd below. Simmons pulled a set from under his gillie suit and clipped his wand to them, he touched the wand with a finger and a thin, red beam shot out of it. He put the glasses to his eyes and scanned down at the crowd.
"Valkyrie flight, this is Surfer, we have trade. Illuminating now," he added as the tiny red dot he could see in the glasses touched at the feet of one of the X'Sheen standing in the center of the milling mob of shadows. "Be advised, Danger Close..."
The sound of a harsh breath came over the wireless, "Understood, thirty seconds, to impact..."
Far above the city, beyond the reach of most any spell and definitely any Dragon which comprised the extent of Malfoy's air forces, so far, a mottled grey dart, almost invisible in the night sky, let loose a single, large cylinder. It fell from the heavens tracking unerringly towards the projected magical signature it saw so far below.
Inside the X'Sheen perimeter, a second line encircled the tower. A thin line of Death Eaters, perhaps twenty, stood at the entrance, their wands and eyes questing for targets. It did not help.
A flicker of spellfire, and several quiet coughs, and ten of the Death Eaters slid to the ground. "WHAT THE..." the commander of the guards yelled, he reached for an alarm crystal, and watched with disbelieving eyes as his hand fell away. A blade whirled, the wielder becoming visible as he turned; he then cut up sideways, neatly lopping the head of the commander. Harry spun to his left, catching the gaze of a Death Eater, who froze as a blade magically skewered his heart.
He slid to the ground and Hermione ducked, slicing sideways as Harry sprinted at her and flipped over her head, cutting down at the Death Eater rushing up behind her just as Hermione's blade took another at the ankles.
To their left, a blonde wisp of a girl with shimmering violet eyes erupted into a knot of four, she cut left, rolling as the Death Eater fell away, his head following him to the ground. Cordelia caught the arm of a second and pulled, ripping it away. She tossed it down, spinning with the motion to land a kick in the chest of the third, sending him flying twenty feet into a wall. He hit with a wet crunch and slid down just as she grabbed the hair of the fourth, yanked, and ripped out his throat with her fangs. She let him fall away, and sprinted towards the tower, not turning as a huge black dog tore down a Death Eater lining up on her. She slid into the entrance on her knees, her wand in her hand and pointing into the building.
"Three...Two..." Hermione's voice snapped, and Harry dove to the side, pulling her with him. They rolled behind a large concrete planner their fronts together tightly, and took a breath...
The world exploded in a white flash...Unearthly screams filled the air as X'Sheen and Death Eaters alike died, the plaza where they had been forming suddenly as hot as the core of the sun for a brief instant in time. The flash died away, and up in the parking garage, Simmons rolled back from behind the large concrete pillar he had been sheltering behind, it was blackened and charred, and looked out on the plaza. Only a few remnants of the Death Eater Liaisons to the X'Sheen remained, their carbonized forms, glowing bumps on the smoldering concrete, the X'Sheen, as usual when they died, left nothing behind. "You're clear, Leo, back door is not only open...it's gone."
"Confirm," Harry muttered into the wireless, and rolled slowly off Hermione, his hands briefly flicking over her torso to check her. She rolled her eyes, before meeting his and nodding. Harry called his sword to him, he had dropped it covering his wife and stood looking around at the others he had brought in with him, "Everyone alright?"
A chorus of silent nods answered him, as the rest of the team he had brought in, the old survivors of SG-1's command staff and their...friends, including for the first time in months, Draco, patted themselves down, checking to see if everything had survived the mad rush in. "We're just fine, Harry," Cordelia called in a purring tone from where she was standing next to Lupin, he had a slightly guilty look on his face, and she was slowly licking her lips, cleaning them of blood.
Harry shook his head, and looked around the area. He caught sight of a single Death Eater still breathing and stood, vanishing and reappearing across the room. A muttered "Enervate," and the Death Eater stirred. His eyes grew huge as he blinked them open to find ten faces, with a rainbow of eyes, all of them hard, looking down at him. The fact that two pair of them, sat on top of mouths with rather pointedly pointed fangs probably did not help his confidence either. Cordelia licked her chops and he trembled, and looked away at their boots until Hermione knelt down, grabbed his chin and forced his eyes to hers.
He slumped back to unconsciousness as she stood, "Fifteenth floor," she said.
"That's brilliant," Ron replied, shaking his head. "Do you have any idea how many damn wankers are probably between us and them? It's not like we can Apparate up there, even I can feel the wards..."
"Ye of little faith," Harry replied, he shared a look with Hermione for an instant, she smiled slightly at some thought, and he glanced to Ron's right, only peripherally noticing Draco, Tonks and Lupin spreading out in a rough triangle about them, covering the approaches. "Luna?"
Her eyes went unfocused and acquired a soft golden glow she unhurriedly paned her head up, more or less following the invisible line of the staircases. "About a...hundred, Harry, most on the landings between here and there...ten on the fifteenth, they are all in the stairway, waiting...the reception area is clear, and there are another ten or so in the main office area, it's open..." She broke off, swaying slightly as Ron reached over and caught her. Luna took a hard breath and looked to him, smiling slightly as she steadied herself.
"Fine then, gather round..." Harry SHIFTED changing form, arms neck extending, as his legs grew smaller. A moment passed, and a large, Phoenix hovered in the air in front of them. Emerald green eyes looked to each of them and without a word, the eleven others that had come this night, grabbed onto long tail feathers and vanished in a fall of fire.
Fifteen stories up, a single Death Eater standing behind a ruined receptionist's desk looked up as a fall of fire erupted tend feet in front of him, reached for a wand, and died without a sound as a silent silver beam shot from a wand, taking him high in the forehead. Ginny rolled her head on her neck slightly as she moved towards her victim, broke his wand with a quick kick, and looked back, giving a brusque nod to the hard-eyed brunette in the middle of the room, with a large phoenix with an odd, lighting bolt shaped patch of gold feathers on his red brow, and luminous green eyes perched on her shoulder.
Harry reappeared in an instant, leaving Hermione's shoulder and flowing back to his human form without a sound. He looked at the team of Ginny, Neville, and Draco standing near the door to the stairs, and at Ron, Luna, Remus and Tonks who were already stacked at the door to the main, open office area. Parvati knelt in place, her wand held low and ready at her knee. He held up five fingers in a wait gesture, and drew both wands, and pointed them at the door to the offices, as he walked to the door. He felt Hermione at his back and glanced to the right to see Ron already with a wand in one hand and a pistol in the other, both pointed at the door. He took a breath, nodded....
"REDUCTO..." Ron snapped, a blue bolt hissing past Harry and shattering the wooden door leading to the offices, and sending flaming shards tumbling into the room, killing a Death Eater instantly who had been standing at the door. Harry distantly heard an explosion behind him as Ginny destroyed the door to the stairs and charged.
Eyes shifted and changed, compensating for the sudden darkness as every source of illumination in the room died. Harry spun to his right, his left and right wand tracking, and two Death Eaters flew backwards as turquoise beams blew flaming holes in their chests. Another fell as Hermione threw him backwards out the window with the flick of Lily's wand, crossed her own under her arm and a stuttering red bolt took the arm off another. She slid to her knees, sliding under a Kedavra, as Ron came in on her heels, his pistol coughed once, taking a Death Eater halfway through his transformation and dropped him.
Behind them, Remus and Tonks slid in to the right and left, moving quickly, but smoothly behind their wands. Ron followed them, his weapons tracking as he scanned along the walls for something they missed as Luna remained in the lobby covering their medic, and facing towards the staircase, just in case.
Harry dove to his left, deflecting a spiraling gold curse upwards, shattering long extinguished fluorescent bulbs, and sending glass raining down over his head. He glanced over the top of a desk and back down quickly as a Kedavra shot over his head, exploding a man-sized hole in the wall to his rear.
A huge, bipedal shape rose from behind a desk, followed by another as the last of Anderson's security detail, the two surviving weres out of four he had started with, finished their transformations and charged. They leapt over the desk Harry was covering behind, and pounced at his head, missing by inches as he rolled to the side, and snap-kicked to his feet in one motion.
A blade appeared in the gloom, its edge, a silvery sheen. With a tremendous roar, the two pounced, tossing aside desks in their haste to get to him. Hermione caught one in mid-air, redirected it, and knocked the final defending Death Eater out the window. His scream dopplered away in the night and she spun back to Harry, her hand already reaching for her own blade, when a great, grayish-brown shape flew in from the side, tackling the slightly smaller of the pair to the ground, the one that had gotten behind Harry. A loud roar, a brief scuffle and a wet crunch, and the new werewolf stood and crouched slightly, watching the duel that erupted fifteen feet away.
Harry spun, batting aside a flashing paw, as it shot at his side. He ducked under another strike, spun left, and his blade flashed upward. A tremendous howl thundered in his ears, as a smoking brown-furred paw fell past his vision. The were's face shot at his, gleaming fangs glinting in the few lights leaking in from the shattered windows, and caught only air as Harry vanished from view. He reappeared behind the wolf, a silvery-blue glow lighting his eyes, and swung, spinning with the motion and folding to a knee.
The wolf took one stride and fell, his torso falling forward and his legs backwards. Harry looked up and over at a softly glowing set of blue eyes, Sorry...
You better be...
Harry drew his left wand, flicking the thousand-year-old blade in his right free of blood and slowly started to move through the room, weapons at the ready.
Behind him, in the lee of the room, a small door opened that lead to a bathroom from the sign, a wand poked out.... Twin hissing Reductors tore across the room, leaving a glowing trail in the vision of everyone there, and vaporized the last Death Eater. A thin red mist hung in the air for a second as Hermione took a breath and slowly sheathed her left wand, holding Harry's gaze as he sheathed his, then his sword.
Lupin morphed back to his relatively unassuming human guise, and took a long, panting breath as Ron walked over to the shattered remains of the last Death Eater, and gingerly picked up a black piece of bloodstained cloth. He held it up to Harry, indicating the embroidered green skulls of a Death Eater general. "I think they are pretty well...." A huge explosion cut him off, shaking the building to its core.
"Sorry, Leo," Draco's laconic voice drawled over the wireless, "Red got a touch...carried away."
"Confirm," Hermione replied, rolling her eyes, to Harry in her thoughts, "trap that way and get up here."
"Um...Bookworm," Parvati asked, "How are we getting out, Harry again?"
"No," Harry replied, changing the channel back to the ones the rest of the team was on, "In style..."
In the distance, out the even more shattered remains of the windows, a pair of sun-bright lights appeared. They shot towards the windows at an impossible speed, and half of the team dove to the floor, praying not to die right now...The lights swerved at the last millisecond, and turned, stopping in midair and resolving as their eyes adjusted to the predatory, dragon-sized craft bobbing slightly in the air currents next to the tower. A pair of fighters dropped in next to it, the tips of their wands glowing a bright blue as they scanned back and forth.
A glowing red doorway opened in the side of the craft an smiling man with a gleaming, shaved palate and a bright orange goatee leaned out, holding onto a strap, "PLANNING ON STAYING?" John Simmons yelled across and tossed across a handful of safety lines.
"GO," Harry snapped pointing at the hovering craft out the window as explosions stated to come from the booby-trapped stairs as Death Eaters charged up the stairs, which was amazing in retrospect as they normally ran these days when their X'Sheen thralls were taken out of the equation, but that was not the case this night. Harry spun back, towards the door and a stream of spells ripped from his wand, blue, gold, silver, red...
He watched Parvati sprint past him, Draco pulling at her elbow, followed closely by Neville and Ginny. He noticed almost idly that Neville was limping as they crossed his gaze. He stopped firing and rolled left, moving behind Hermione as she started to fire with both wands, sending a stream of covering fire. The first four boarded, not bothering with the safety lines as they simply cast Summoning Charms on the plane and let the vast difference in mass pull them to the doorway. Simmons and a grizzled chief in urban camouflage flung them into the craft, and barely got out of the way as Ron and Luna arrived.
Hermione rolled right, leapfrogging back as Harry started in again. She stopped by the window, and watched as Lupin took the simple expedient of grabbing Tonks and leaping the thirty feet to the aircraft. Cordelia threw Sirius in the plane and followed, jumping across the distance as easily as stepping off a curb. Harry fell back the window just as a Death Eater made it to the doorway and poked his head in, loosing it instantly. A flood of green spells snapped through the door as Harry spun, his eyes glowing fiercely, grabbed Hermione's hand and leapt into space, landing in a roll in the cabin of the Wyvern transport.
"PUNCH IT, TOM!" Simmons yelled to the front, and without a word of warning, the nose of the craft dropped and it shot away, leaving only a faint visual residue of its field drives behind.
Both fighters turned like huge hornets, their Reductors and autocannons roaring, and shattered the thirteenth through sixteenth floors in a maelstrom of destruction, as they quickly backed away on their drives. A silver dart detached from under each, flashing across the distance.
A white flash lit the night as the two fighters tore from the scene, meeting up with the transport as it flashed north, heading for safe territory. Inside it, Harry pulled himself to his feet and took a breath, glancing out at the darkened terrain flashing by. He reached up to his ear, "Phoenix Actual to all units...Execute."
He took a breath as Hermione grabbed him and pulled him to a bench seat. She made a motion to Parvati, who was finishing wrapping Neville's ankle, and caught Parvati's med pack in one hand. Hermione pushed Harry back against the seat as he tried to rise again, and held him there by the simple expedient of straddling his lip. She gave him a half-hearted glare as she unzipped the top of his shadow suit and peeled it down, exposing a damp with blood, tight black shirt underneath. She reached over to the pack, still not moving from his lap. What am I going to with you? she muttered exasperatedly.
Take me home and have your wicked way with me? Harry asked with a touch of hope. Hermione snorted, and kissed him quickly before she started to dab on a thick, yellow potion onto a group of shallow cuts on his neck and upper chest from the glass. She stopped occasionally to use her wand to remove slivers of glass from the wounds, before taping a white gauze pad to his neck and setting the medical supplies aside. She fell forward against him and sighed. It was just a werewolf, Mione, Remus got the other-
Hermione did not answer for a long moment, before she reached up, and pulled his head to hers. She groaned softly, feeling her mouth fall open instinctually, and felt his tongue dance with hers. Hermione's eyes were only half open and fully lit as she pulled back, and buried her face in his shoulder, breathing quickly as she fought herself back under control. Every other eye in the transport section of the aircraft looked away, finding something else interesting to look at, read, or talk about.
She took a breath and leaned back into the hands she could feel at the small of her back, fingers slipping under her weapons belt to trail against the fabric there. I know, Harry...
I wasn't being reckless, Love, Harry objected reaching up and running the fingers of his right hand through her hair, not any more than you... A moment's reflection passed before she nodded tardily, and slid from his lap to the bench next to him, there was acres of room in the back of the craft that was designed for a platoon of Armored Suits with heavy weapons, that currently held only Harry's command team, and a SEAL scout team, a force less than a twentieth the mass and three fourths the bodies.
Harry looked up as Simmons looked back at him from near the door. "Where to, Boss?"
"Take her up, out of Dragon range and wait, let's give the Armor a chance to do their jobs." Simmons gave him a thumbs up from the door and spoke into a thin wire at his lips.
*************************Edinburgh Castle**************************
4:25 am
Edinburgh castle was ancient, almost as much so as Hogwarts herself, if not as animated. Over the years, it had been refurbished from what it had been, an ancient, run-down fortress to a Muggle tourist trap, just like so many of the other castles dotted here and there around what had been, in happier times, the United Kingdom.
The castle had been occupied for the last seven years by a large battalion of Death Eaters. Their trash was strewn everywhere, cluttered in humps along the low walls of stone walkways leading up to the castle proper. The Death Eaters, once the power in the town, the absolute rulers of all they had witnessed for the last seven years, had been decimated in the battles in the city and their attempted retreats over the past several days. They had abandoned the castle, leaving only a token force of twenty that had lasted all of seventeen seconds from the time that the first Armored Suit kicked in the door, to the last call of "CLEAR!" over the wireless.
The rest of the city, except for a few random holdouts, all Death Eaters, had been secured if not quite cleared an hour ago. Of course, the fact that civilians had pulled bound and gagged Death Eaters in to the streets out from hiding, the ones that they didn't beat to death, had helped immensely. The majority of the Death Eaters, sans their orders from their superiors had broke, running for their lived into the hills or straight south, trying desperately to fight past the sudden cordon of armor, air and dragons which were both really, that had appeared between them and the perceived safety of England proper.
The X'Sheen, Malfoy's dark enforcers, had reacted typically, spending themselves futilely. Instead of retreating out of the city to join up with the legions that were still five hours out, having been slowed immensely by the random anti-Apparation wards spread from airdropped talismans, snap raids by armor companies and air strikes by Dragons, or instead of forting up and waiting for reinforcements, they had attacked. The Armor forces were happy to stand atop buildings and rain down fire as attached Wizards held them in place with anti-Apparation wards, and to watch as flights of dragons and fighters along with daring wizards on normal brooms, swoop down to rain destruction on them. Malfoy's own dragons and brooms had been swept from the sky as almost the opening act of the battle.
Harry stood on the tallest tower of the castle, looking south, observing impassively from the broad, flat, circular stone platform surrounded by granite battlements, the flashes of spellfire and mundane warfare far to the south, almost fifty kilometers now as the 507th Heavy Assault Division along with unknown numbers of unarmored military, resistance and even civilians long oppressed harried the dark forces away.
Harry glanced over at Hermione, a cup of coffee in his hand, the first such drink he had had in five hours except for the tepid water in the suit bladders, and watched for an instant as she fanned her half-unzipped top, trying to cool off. Heat was one of the major annoyances of the shadow suits, that while even stealthier than the old invisibly cloaks, they retained heat and scent as well, both vital for avoiding magical and mundane guard creatures, but a pain after a day solid in them. Harry took a long breath to calm himself as animagus senses, already on alert, caught a whiff of his wife's pheromones, stronger than even normal due to the danger. She looked up at him and gave him a small, promising smile, letting him know she felt the same way, before she let it fade, returning to business.
Fuck it, Harry whispered, and took her hand, pulling her in front of him, and resting his chin on her shoulder, feeling relatively secure with an entire company of armor and a half battalion of British Marines surrounding the castle, their magical and mundane weapons, and at least two Cerberi on patrol looking for infiltrators or other threats. A soft inconsistent pulse danced along the edge of his senses, as the anti-Apparation wards cycled.
Across from them, sitting with his back against the battlement walls, Ron was munching on a sandwich Luna had conjured for him. She sat between his legs, her elbows resting on his knees as she held her head forward and slowly tried to comb the knots from the tight hood of her suit out of her now unbound hair. Her zipper was even lower than Hermione's on her top, causing one or two of the sentries to occasionally let their guard slip as they glanced over. She looked up at Harry, and shook her head, tossing bangs out of her eyes, she gave him a quick nod and looked back.
In the center of the tower, an inlayed gold circle glowed. The circle had been set in this tower for ages, but had remained undetected to Muggle eyes. Harry sighed, and looked to his watch, an old, battered stainless steel chronograph that his children had 'bought' for him years ago, years before this had started, and frowned. Where the hell is he, Hermione? Hermione just shrugged; leaning back into him, as she concentrated on their next move, back to the hunt for the next clue.
Harry's question was answered in the next instant, as with a fall of fire, Dumbledore appeared in the exact center of the circle. His Familiar rode his shoulder as he turned and looked at Harry, "Sorry I am late, I had a touch of trouble with a detention."
"One of ours?" Hermione asked, her eyes closed.
"No...Slytherin I am afraid." Dumbledore's eyes hardened as he took a breath and Fawkes took flight, swooping briefly around the perimeter of the tower before perching next to Harry on the battlement wall. Dumbledore held out his wand, horizontally in front of him and gave it a shake. A soft, rumbling came from nowhere as the wand grew, lengthening and thickening. An intricate white cage surrounding a faceted, glowing jewel appeared at the end, and a moment later, a seven-foot-tall wizards staff had grown from Dumbledore's wand.
Dumbledore parked the staff vertically in the air at his right hand and reached under his robes. With a sigh of infinitely sharp steel on leather, he drew the Headmaster's Sword from the depths of his robes and held it in front of him. He looked to Harry; Harry tightened his arms around Hermione and gave him a slow nod. Both of their eyes were already lit as Dumbledore glanced back, found Luna looking up at him from her seat next to Ron, her eyes glowing their gold color as well.
Raw power thrummed through the air, causing the few totally electronic components in more than one suit to wig out before the technology enchantments managed to drain the excess magic to ground to allow them to restart. Dumbledore's eyes lit with a fierce white light, he raised the sword high...With one powerful, blurred motion, he inverted the sword, ramming it point-first into a slit that appeared milliseconds before the blade touched stone. Dumbledore gave the sword a half turn, like a giant key, the exact same motion he had undertaken at Hogwarts and at Glasgow earlier this night. The sense of something terribly huge filled the air as Dumbledore withdrew the sword, and resheathed it.
The butt of his staff rapped the stone sharply and the gold ring lit, sending a translucent cylinder of light straight up into the sky. He raised the staff above his head, "ARTHRIUM RESTORUM..." The cylinder started to pulse, Dumbledore raised the staff higher... "PROTECTORUM," the butt of the staff slammed back to earth and a thick white pulse snapped out, speeding away at nearly the speed of sound towards the horizon and driving every magic user in its path to their knees. Harry staggered back to his feet and looked to the left, just in time to see Dumbledore appear there, the circle still unbroken.
The cylinder became solid, sending a solid, ten foot thick beam of light to the heavens, it slowly bent to the Northwest, a second beam from directly west lit the sky in that direction, that beam bent slowly until they touched, at the very edge of space but approximately in the center of Scotland.
Many, many kilometers to the north, the ancient fortress of Hogwarts awoke as the entire castle shuddered. Children rushed to the windows to witness, for the barest of an instant, vast, ghostly white walls surrounding them, the very walls of the fallen Avalon they lived atop every day. Emilia fell from the couch, crashing to her brother as both of their eyes lit, the castle's presence filling their minds as it asked a single question, "May I?, my Lord, my Lady..."
A stunned Emilia answered, I guess, and outside of the window a solid beam of light erupted from the center of the courtyard streaking upwards to the heavens, bending to the south until it intercepted the other two at the very edge of the atmosphere. The three beams pulsed once, and vanished, leaving behind a glowing white dome over all of Scotland.
Throughout the country, X'Sheen erupted and vanished, screaming in flares of purple-black fire, until after a minute none remained in the countryside. To the south, approximately fifty kilometers to the south of Edinburgh, the Armored suits fell back, their orders clear. They and every other Allied troop passed through the barrier without the barest sense of resistance, and stopped, reforming on the other side.
Endless tides of X'Sheen crested the ridges in pursuit, raced towards the barrier and were thrown back, crashing into those behind them, and sending the entire host to its knees.
For the next ten hours, the X'Sheen tried to force the barrier with everything they had, to no avail, before falling back at Malfoy's orders, Scotland lost to them.
A/N: There we go. Next chapter, someone comes home, changed.