Chapter 11. Here Comes a Whizz-Bang.
"Don't you think they have suffered enough?" Harry asked his wife just a few days before Christmas. "The three of them confined to school for the holidays and only allowed out of the school buildings with Dobby to watch their every move, why are you being so hard on them Hermione?"
Harry and Hermione rarely disagreed, in all the time they had been married the number of occasions could be counted on the fingers of one hand, but this time it seemed, Hermione wasn't about to let it go. The incident at the Ministry had badly frightened her, she still didn't understand what had really occurred, but she was convinced her children had been in mortal danger and that was not to happen again.
"Why!" Hermione's voice had a hysterical edge; she seemed unable to talk sensibly about the subject. "Because, if they try something like that again, they are going to get themselves killed. It's not like with us, we had no choice, the danger was there and we had to face it. There was no reason for them to go to the Ministry, it was idiotic, an unnecessary risk."
Harry drew in a deep breath; he was determined to talk the matter through this time. He felt that all this disturbance had gone on long enough, and it was interfering with their ability to deal with all their other problems.
"Have you actually asked the kids why they went there?" He said, trying to reason with her.
"No." Hermione replied shortly, folding her arms and turning her back to Harry.
"James was having dreams," he told her.
"Dreams, what sort of dreams?" Now there was uncertainty in the tone of her voice.
"My sort of dreams," explained Harry, "and as I did, he talked his dreams over with his best friends. Then they determined to find out what they meant on their own, maybe not the most sensible course of action, but me, I blame the example set to them by their parents," Harry wrapped his arms protectively around his wife, and kissed her on the back of the neck. "There is more of you and me in those kids than may be good for them, but it is there, and there is nothing you or I can do about that."
"Oh Harry," as her resistance melted away, she sagged in his arms. "What are we going to do with them? And what with this Draco business I am beginning to feel the walls closing in about me again."
"Well, I suggest you go and have a good long talk with the kids, all three of them," Harry said in his best professorial tone, "Dobby can stay at school next term and keep an eye on them, and you and me can sort out Draco."
"You and I Harry, it's you and I," Hermione corrected automatically.
"That's right love," said Harry as he watched her walk across the room and out of the door. "The both of us," and he smiled to himself as the love of his life went in search of their children.
Christmas turned out to be not too bad after all, Hermione had calmed down, Tonks had long gotten over her disappointment at her daughter's actions, not so much at what she had done, but the fact that they had allowed themselves to get caught, and Harry just breathed a sigh of relief. His relief in part was due to what in the end had finally settled Hermione's mind, on the matter of the Dementor.
Solomon had searched through his large collection of ancient scrolls and found written evidence to back up what Nat, James and Jennifer had been telling them all along. Dementors were a corruption, not a real race of beings at all, they had just appeared, and those of them that were there at the beginning were there at the end, because they couldn't breed. They were an abomination living a twisted existence, which was why in the end it was inevitable they would follow Voldemort.
The Dreamwraiths, or the Sommulatum that the Dementors were derived from, had been a benign race. In feeding on discarded memories and nightmares they had kept the balance between dream and action, which helped to maintain peace and tranquillity. No wonder the history of both muggles and wizards was littered by wars and strife, which as time progressed became worse and worse. It had crossed Harry's mind as to what the fate of the world might be if this situation continued, so even in his new knowledge there were worries.
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Draco had no worries, his plans were maturing nicely. He held Julius Magus on a tight rein, the muggle had no way of fighting the Imperious curse and it was distinctly possible he was completely unaware that he was under its influence anyway. Convinced he had reduced the fighting ranks of the Tyr by one, Draco almost discounted them as a threat. Individually its members were still a danger, in the case of Potter and Granger, a great danger, he pondered on that thought because no matter how he looked at it, he could not see them as husband and wife.
To him they had always remained as the swotty know-it-all and the boy with more luck than anyone should have. As a couple, in love, producing children, Draco gave an involuntary shudder; the whole idea was too revolting to contemplate. Studying his opponents was something that Draco spent a great deal of time doing. There were others, …Minister Weasley and his Aurors, a minor concern, they would get theirs in good time, …the muggle authorities, Magus worried more about them than Draco did, and then there was the Headmaster of Hogwarts.
Solomon Aegis, why couldn't he have been a spineless weakling like old Dippet, the one his father had to avoid when he was at school, but no, like Dumbledore he has to be powerful and worldly wise, how he hated him. Never mind, Draco had plans for all of them and before the summer solstice they would all be dead, or worse than dead, and he would start with Aegis. Draco smiled, this they won't expect, and if he was lucky and his plan worked, he may get more than one with this blow.
Magus Industries was a huge organisation and had many fingers in many pies. One of these pies, Draco was delighted to discover, produced weapons for the muggle military. Wizards didn't understand the way muggles made war, they knew it was messy, noisy and there was always a lot of blood involved. The muggles seemed to destroy and kill at random, to Draco's mind using far more force than was necessary. They had in their arsenal weapons capable of destroying villages, towns, and cities, certainly more than enough power to destroy an old Castle.
Julius Magus, standing with his new personal assistant Draco Malfoy, his previous one had simply disappeared, observed the activity in the hanger like room that they had just entered. Two nondescript vans were parked in the centre on the large concrete floor, and six men in paramilitary uniforms were loading the equipment into them. The new short range spot guided tactical missiles were preloaded in the shoulder carried launchers that were being secured in the vans. If this final test was successful then the government was bound to confirm its order, for them to supply the army personnel and select the firing area and target was a good sign. It never occurred to Magus that certain aspects of the test and the delivery of the weapons was not the way in which the Army usually worked, but it would not have concerned him anyway, as Draco had covered that part of the arrangements and Julius had every confidence in him.
"You understand," Draco addressed the six men, assembled in a line before him. "That your target will be protected by a unit using hallucinogenic gas, partly we are testing the missiles, but also this po… err drug, which you must take once you get within twenty miles your target area."
"Yes Sir, all understood," answered the soldier standing at the end of the line.
"The target is an old crumbling ruin, so we expect you to destroy it utterly," Draco smiled as he spoke. "You certainly have the firepower for the job."
"Leave it to us Sir; we will make sure the test is a success." The man turned and with a few brisk words ordered the others into the vans. Within a few minutes Draco was watching as the hanger door closed again after the last departing vehicle.
The small convoy sped northwards unimpeded, even by the unusually heavy snow fall that had descended on Scotland this year. The satellite navigation equipment in the lead van unerringly guided them toward of the most isolated locations any of the men had ever worked in.
Precisely twenty miles short of the target location the vans drew to a stop, and as ordered six doses of nebulaintegum potion were downed under the label of 'Antihallugen' (for use of HM Forces only), it was very sweet and left an aftertaste of elderberries. The potion would have been totally useless if the soldiers had actually come up against a hallucinogenic gas, but it would make them resistant to the anti-muggle spells that normally dissuaded passers-by from stopping and lingering near to Hogwarts Castle.
The potion was not powerful enough to break the enchantment that turned the magnificence that was Hogwarts into the crumbling ruin that all but the uninitiated would see when looking at it, but that worked to Draco's advantage, the muggles would not hesitate to fire on a pile of old stones, whereas a bustling and brightly flagged Castle in good condition was another matter. The missile squad waited the required half an hour as directed on the bottles of potion before moving in. Their leader thought they would arrive at the target about mid morning, fifteen minutes to set up and then fire the missiles, with luck they could be back in Edinburgh before the pubs closed.
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Harry loved to see Prongs, his patronus, running round and round the Quidditch pitch grass. This was one of his special classes, Hagrid always kept the pitch clear of snow for the matches and Harry used this open area to its full. The day was cold and the sky grey with clouds that threatened more snow. With his class of fifth years arranged over the grassy pitch they were practicing producing patronesses.
Although traditionally used to repel Dementors, a patronus was basically a shield so it, could drive off many different magical creatures and dispel some of the slower acting enchantments. This was fortunate, as since his son had removed the threat of Dementors for good, Harry was concerned that Prongs and his like would serve no useful purpose. Thanks to Hermione ploughing through the library, these additional uses were rediscovered, and Harry did not have to think up a new subject to fill these lessons.
The production of a corporeal patronus was a good mark of the power of a witch or wizard, Harry had mastered the spell in his third year. James had matched his mother in producing his and only now was the half man half eagle visible for any length of time. James had called him Simms, the face and torso of a man, with wings that would have made him look like a typical angel but for the fact that his lower half was that of a bird, with a magnificently flared tail and three-toed claw feet.
Simms could fly at a considerable speed on his powerful wings and he produced quite a wake as he passed by. It tired James to keep him active for any great length of time, but Harry knew that this would improve with practice. Harry watched and helped his students as many and various patronesses flashed in and out of existence, some only wisps of smoke, some partly formed and one or two fully fledged. There were so many bits of this and that, floating in the air around, him that Harry didn't really recognise the smoky trail for what it was, only as the rocket flashed over the pitch and its roar climbed above all the cries of Expecto patronum echoing off the stands around him, did he realise the enormity of what he was seeing.
Rushing out of the pitch, Harry saw the missile plough into a snow bank, in front of Hagrid's barn, the one he used for classes in winter, and explode. The barn disintegrated in a flash of flame and smoke and the shockwave from the explosion smashed every pane of glass in the school greenhouses, and nearly blew Harry off his feet. The trail from the rocket hung in the air and clearly marked its path down from the far end of the lake near to where the muggle road passed the end of the valley, and then to his horror he could see four more rockets streaking over the still waters of the lake toward the school.
With the yells of confusion from his own class, and the screams of pain coming from the greenhouses ringing in his ears, Harry sent a mental cry of his own to the two people he knew would be able to help, and in an instant Hermione and Solomon were standing next to him in the snow.
The missiles were half way to the castle when the three of them sent a barrage of reductor curses flying out to meet them. Two rockets exploded with tremendous force in the air over the lake, throwing the others momentarily off course, but fixed as they were to the twinkling laser lights on the castle walls the error was corrected and they flew on toward their target. A second wave of reductor curses shot upwards as straight as arrows, and a third rocket was gone in a splash of fire. The last remaining projectile was within fifty feet of its target when it was surrounded by a brilliantly shimmering ball of force. Harry saw Solomon close his fist, and as he did so the ball contracted crushing the enclosed missile, which flashed white hot for a split second, and then vanished into nothing.
Solomon cried out in pain and thrust his smoking hand into the cooling snow which sizzled and steamed as it took the heat away. Harry and Hermione turned to rush to his aid, so none of the defenders saw the final sixth trail of smoke racing toward them. James standing in shock with his classmates did, whilst his friends dived for cover in the trench the ran around the edge of the Quidditch pitch, he ran forward, and yelling at his parents to take cover used the only spell that came to him mind. The cry of EXPECTO PATRONUM had hardly left his lips when Simms, his wings pumping, soared up to meet the descending missile. Following the direction of James' unwavering wand the patronus connected with the tip of the device and the resulting detonation knocked James flying and pieces of hot metal blasted holes in the brightly coloured stadium behind him.
For a few seconds there was absolute silence then chaos descended, amid the yells and screams Harry and Solomon vanished to reappear amongst the wreckage of the greenhouses, there was a lot of blood on the tables and floor, but Professor Sprout sporting several cuts of her own, was organising the students of her class and informed Solomon that the most seriously injured were already on their way to the hospital wing. Harry had run on to the remains of Hagrid's barn, but although there was little left to recognise, it was clear that the building had been unoccupied at the time of the attack.
He looked back down towards the stadium and could see that his own class was gathered around a form on the ground that was being cradled in the arms of his wife. Hermione was rocking backward and forward and by the shaking of her shoulders Harry could tell she was crying. With fear in his heart he peragated to her side, but with her head bowed over he could not see the condition of the boy, their son, who she was holding so close to her. Harry reached down to touch Hermione's shoulder and she looked up at him, the tears in her eyes were falling freely and the expression on her face told its own story.
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"Well they were a bloody waste of time," said the soldier as he and his men packed away the empty launchers. "Four premature activations, one we don't think exploded at all and only one hit and even that one was a bit short on range. Magus and his crowd will have to go back to the drawing board with this one." He laughed ironically. "The only success was that we didn't get any hallucinations."
The men around him joined in his laughter and then fell silent three people, a woman and two men, suddenly appeared out of nowhere to stand in the middle of the road. They were dressed in long coats with large sleeves, they were dishevelled and streaked with grime and looked as if they could have been on the receiving end of one of their SRSGM's. The woman was shaking, obviously very upset, there was fury in her eyes and tear streaks could be seen clearly on her face, she raised her arm. In her hand she held a stick which she thrust out at the lead van, the word that she shouted sounded like 'BOMBARDA' there was a rush of wind, a bright flash and the van disintegrated into thousands of very small pieces.
For a few seconds the soldiers were shocked into immobility, then their natural survival instincts took control and they scattered. They didn't get very far, to their continued surprise ropes appeared out of thin air and without any human intervention proceeded to wrap themselves around each of them. Bound tight like this they could not maintain their balance and one by one they crashed to the frozen road.
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Harry sat by the bed and stared down at the still form of his son, he was tired and close to tears. He had made Hermione take a sleeping draught so at least she was now resting in a dreamless sleep away from all this. The ward was crowded, students covered in bandages, and extra healers brought in from St.Mungo's, filled every space. Even Poppy Pomfrey had come to lend a hand and at that moment she laid it on Harry's shoulder.
"You must get some sleep Harry," she said softly, despite the number of people in the ward, it was eerily quiet.
"Soon," said Harry as the still form before him moved. James' chest rose slowly and he took another breath. "I thought he was dead you know; only when Hermione looked up and I saw her relief was I sure he wasn't." Harry smiled sadly with the memory. "Then James gives me a grin, says 'I'm fine dad' and passes out." Harry paused and sighed. "He was still connected to his patronus when that bloody rocket exploded, that's why he was knocked about so."
"Yes Harry I do know," Poppy replied.
"Of course you know," said Harry sleepily, "You know everything, thank-you Poppy." Then Harry's head nodded forward and he fell asleep in the chair.
Poppy Pomfrey took a spare blanket and wrapped it around Harry trying to make him a little more comfortable. She ran her hand through his tousled hair, to her he was still that little boy who fell off his broom a lot and injured himself completing feats that many a full grown wizard would have run from. "Thank me Harry? … No thank-you." She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead and thanked Merlin that it was this particular boy who had received that scar.
Harry woke the following morning, refreshed but very stiff. As he surfaced from his sleep the gentle murmur of voices informed him that the nursing staff were checking on the patients lying quietly in their beds. He looked to his son and was relieved to see two deep brown eyes staring back at him, James was so like his mother in many ways. 'But trying to take out that rocket yesterday, that sounds more like me', he thought.
"Hi Dad, you OK?"
"Hi yourself, I'm fine, how about you?"
"Bit sore and stiff," said James.
"Tell me about it," said Harry, his left buttock had gone back to sleep and he shifted in his chair in an attempt to wake it up.
The door to the hospital ward creaked partly open and Hermione and Nat squeezed through. Nat ran across to her father and brother, Hermione followed more slowly, the expression of apprehension fading as she saw James heave himself into a sitting position to welcome his sister.
Once Hermione had satisfied herself that James was OK, she and Harry left him in the company of Nat and made their way to the headmaster's office, where they were sitting waiting for Solomon to return.
Hermione was still very definitely on edge; Harry had no difficulty in recognising that, he regarded his wife with concern; he had never seen her so mixed up. She had always been the one with the answers, so sure, so steady, but since the thing with the Dementor last term and now this attack, she was more vulnerable than he ever imagined she would be.
The door opened and Solomon entered, he was tired not having slept at all the last night, but with only one glance he read the troubled look on Harry's face and knew the reason for it. With a negligent wave of his hand a tray of tea and buttered toast appeared on the small table near the chairs.
"There Hermione," Solomon said lightly, "shall I be mother, or will you?"
Her brown eyes darted up and she seemed about to say something, but she was held by the steady gaze that Solomon returned, and no words escaped her mouth. The eyes that had seen countless triumphs and tragedies over fifteen hundred years bored through the layers of hopes, fears, desires and love that made up this most remarkable witch, the like of which Solomon had only ever encountered once before. He felt Harry join them and together they led Hermione through the maze of thoughts in which she was in danger of losing herself.
Motherhood had changed Hermione's perception of life, she had never really worried about herself, and with the protection of Hermione's Tear, she had little reason to. In their fight with Voldemort she had worried about Harry, he had had her complete confidence, but she still worried.
He was not her worry now, James and Nat, that was where the problem lay, if Hermione failed her children they would pay with their lives, and this thought was eating away her resolve. Perhaps they should run away and find somewhere to hide then the problems of the wizarding world would not be theirs. Hadn't they done enough?
Nat sitting quietly by her brother's bed followed Harry and Hermione with her mind as they departed for Solomon's office. James was in a doze so Nat concentrated all her thoughts on her parents, her mother in particular. Nat could feel Hermione's confusion, her worries and her desperation to protect her children. Nat knew that she could help, but her mother would not listen to her, she needed someone she could really trust, and so before she sent her mind on its errand of mercy she constructed a simulation of a wizard that even Hermione would believe.
'I don't know what to do,' Hermione wailed in thought, and then suddenly her mind was isolated from Harry and Solomon and every thing went black. For half a second she panicked, then as the light grew again she saw she was not alone. As far as she could tell the room she was in was built of stone, blank, featureless and not very large, someone was holding her hand, but even before it was light enough to see a face, Hermione felt her presence, she knew it was Nat.
She turned expecting to see her daughter and looked straight into the face of the oldest man she had ever seen. He had a long white beard and long white hair and was dressed in a blue robe studded with golden stars, at first she thought it was Dumbledore, then as the light brightened although there were similarities Hermione could tell it was not. He did look familiar, but the likeness was to that of Solomon, and then she realised whose company she was in.
"Merlin?" She asked in a slightly timid voice.
"That's right my dear, and what can I do for you?" The old man's voice trembled and tripped over the words. "Come on now, don't be shy." He treated her to a gentle smile.
"Oh! Ahh! err… I thought you called me, didn't you?" Hermione was confused and embarrassed all at the same time.
"Oh yes, silly me, of course I did," said Merlin, shaking his head at his woolliness. "Look Hermione, look at the wall and see."
Merlin retrieved his wand from the voluminous pocket of his robes, it was long and crooked and with a flourish he waved it in the direction of the wall, thousands of tiny stars shot from its end and vanished into the stonework.
The wall of the room sparkled and flashed and an image appeared as if projected on its surface, it was Avalon and the scene was that of a wedding. Initially Hermione thought it was her own, but surely that was the two of them standing to one side. Hermione scanned the crowd, she recognised many faces, but there were a few she could not place, all of them looked as if they were having a wonderful time. As she glanced back at herself and her husband standing there near the bride and groom, Hermione noticed that there was a touch of grey in Harry's normally jet black hair.
This was an image of the future and that future was happy and all that she cared about were safe and sound. It was at that moment that the bride and groom turned, looked directly at her, and smiled. Not at the Hermione that was there with them but at her standing here and now in this strange room watching. The image faded and Hermione gave a sigh of disappointment.
"Sorry my dear, but you have no idea how hard gazing into the future really is," said Merlin. "So you see everything will be all right, there is no need to worry, just do what you have to do."
"Are you sure?" Hermione asked. "Looking into the future can be quite unreliable you know."
"This is the way it will be." He told Hermione, his tone was sure and sincere, and although Hermione still retained her doubts about the accuracy of fortune telling, she was happy enough to believe him. "You know now, but you must tell no one what you have seen. Be well my dear." And then Hermione found herself back in the comfortable minds of Harry and Solomon, who were unaware that she had ever left them, and she was at peace.
The stooped figure that looked so much like the great Merlin shimmered and in his place stood a fourteen year old girl that was in reality a bit older than that. For a moment Nat stood alone in the blank room, she hoped that using the image of Merlin would cover her tracks; she had been a little careless with her powers of late, and was sincerely hoping that no one was putting two and two together. She waved her wand again and the wedding scene reappeared on its wall, but then on the other three walls different images appeared.
For the wedding was only one possible future, and Nat knew that as things stood any of the four images shown in the camera posterum, the room of the future, could come true. Nat turned and surveyed the scenes she had hidden from her mother. A landscape blackened and burnt, devoid of life graced the second wall, the third a scene so appalling with flames and torment boiling out of it, that Nat had to turn away. On the fourth and final wall there was nothing, it wasn't that it was blank because you could actually feel the nothing that it showed, and it was the thought of that nothingness that frightened Nat more than anything.
Harry and Solomon congratulated themselves, the session in the office this morning, and the subsequent questioning of the six muggles had brought Hermione back to her normal self. All her doubts had vanished and Harry could find nothing in her mind that suggested the change of heart was not genuine. He was relieved; they would all need to be thinking positively if they were to overcome this new challenge the information from the muggles had unearthed.
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The muggle soldiers had co-operated, and co-operated willingly. They had spent the night locked in the room of requirements, which was masquerading as a deep, dark, slimy dungeon, with the castle ghosts for company and by morning were eager to talk.
They had realised that what they had thought were illusions brought about by the hallucinogenic gas were in fact very real. Tough men though they may have been, there is a limit to the number of times you can sit through the telling of the botched attempt to behead Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, especially when the tale is told by the victim himself with added actions.
They told all that they knew. It was not much for their knowledge was limited to the job on hand the planning and testing of the missiles, but there were a few names and locations that proved useful to the wizards. The men had not acted maliciously or with intent to kill or maim, so with their memories modified and filled with a job well done and completed to the letter, the muggles were put back in their remaining van and sent on their way. It was left up to them to come up with a good reason for the loss of the other vehicle.
So Harry, Hermione, Solomon and the rest of the Tyr now knew of the existence of Magus Industries, and the fact that Draco Malfoy had been involved in planning the attack on the school. Now they had their target, they just needed a bit more information for they wanted nothing to get in their way. Unfortunately for them Draco was of the same mind, there was only one thing he intended to put in their way, and that was indeed nothing, but the nothing he had in mind was a nothing that none of them had ever come across before.