Unofficial Portkey Archive

disclaimer:

I don't own Harry Potter. In fact... I don't want to own Harry Potter. Give him to madm_05 if you feel you want to.

Author's note:

update:There have been a few people unhappy with this chapter so far. If you feel that you want to stop reading this story, I would greatly appreciate it if you'd let me know in a review or by contacting me and I'll consider rewriting it for you all.

'

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The Dark Lord Voldemort kicked the remains of a werewolf that had not been collected the night before. 'There are not enough werewolves carcasses here. It looks as if many of them were removed from here.' He mused to himself with a scoff.

"Here she is!"

Voldemort seemed to be there in an instant, picking up what was left of Bellatrix' body. For a very short moment, an emotion, possibly sadness or anger flickered across his face.

Using his wand, he flicked a series of movements, but said nothing. The Death Eaters around him watched in amazement as the ground seemed to become dark beneath them and before them they saw an illusion of Bellatrix standing above Harry.

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a husband for a husband, Baron Black." Her voice rang clear as she brought the sword down and then she was being thrown across the ground.

Voldemort scowled. The sword going through Harry's leg did little to improve his mood. Especially since the brat was still alive.

The scene faded away. Bellatrix' body contained no memory further than that.

"My lord..." Avery said approaching him. He held out his hand to his master and Voldemort reached to take whatever it was being handed to him.

Voldemort was caught off-guard to have a hand full of dust placed in his hands.

There was a tell-tale aura faintly coming off the dust, giving away what it used to be. Voldemort cursed Potter under his breath. 'So, the vampires have chosen to help him out have they? They'll pay for this treason.'

"We return home. There is nothing more to do here. Bring the LeStrange bodies. We shall see about reanimating them. She would want that." He commanded them, ignoring the fact that Bellatrix had hated inferi with a vengeance.

"How much further back do you think we can go?" Harry asked.

Remus shrugged. "Truth be told Harry, I'm not so sure this is such a good idea."

"We've got to do something for them Remus." Harry replied hotly as he gently massaged his leg. It was bound tightly and the potions had done their job overnight, but was told not to use the leg more than necessary for a three weeks and handed him a pair of crutches.

"I'm not saying that we shouldn't." The lycan replied. "I just don't think this is the right answer."

"I'm open for suggestions." He replied hotly.

"Minerva and I were going to dig us our own caves nearby, with your help, we could do the same for each of the werewolves and put the whole mountain under the fidelius."

Hermione stared at Remus gobsmacked. "Remus, are you out of your mind!? A whole mountain? What makes you think I could do that?" She asked him in annoyance. "And don't you think the muggles would notice a mountain going missing from their satellite?"

"What's a satellite?" He asked in reply. Then shook his head, disallowing himself from getting side-tracked. "No, I don't care. The fact is that between the two of you, you could each do half a mountain."

"Make it a quarter and you're being more realistic I think."

"Wow, you can do a quarter of a mountain?" Remus asked surprised.

"Weren't you just saying...?" Harry started then realised he'd been tricked. "OOOOHH! Remus!" Harry raised his crutch to hit the man.

"I was kidding!" He cried.

"I do think it is a good idea, however difficult." Hermione said. "Harry would be able to cover more area than I would but in a worst case scenario, we can always have multiple secrets. Can you do the fidelius Harry?"

Harry shook his head. "Teach me after we get some caves built."

"Perhaps we should also take the opportunity to build a few other facilities such as a holding cell and kitchen." Harry mused. "Knight might know some of the spells they used for Azkaban..."

"I doubt it." Remus replied. "From what I've heard he was little more than a guard there."

"Well, we'll organise something. Let's speak with the werewolves then and get some input from them about how they'd like some homes."

The werewolves were initially not easy for Fenrir to manage. A number of them were angry at Harry for leading them into a trap when he himself knew about it. Those who appreciated what the Barons had done for them argued that he wasn't sure it was a trap.

When the argument was over, fifteen of them had left the pack and went to try to join Voldemort again. Only one of them survived and that was because they brought news that Draco Malfoy was still alive, stuck on the walls of the Baron's walls, but as none of them were able to give Voldemort any idea of where they were living except that there were mountains and trees around which didn't really narrow down Norway much.

It had came as a shock to Harry when he found the rat on the wall as he knew he hadn't stuck it there but the feeling of mystery didn't last long as Remus owned up to it the moment he was queried.

The Barons became very popular rather quickly and they heard a lot of news that they didn't want to hear.

After the presence of Bellatrix was revealed that night, Harry naturally knew it was Peter Pettigrew to blame. There was nobody else to blame for allowing the information of their attack to be leaked to Voldemort. It was a mystery to Harry why Wormtail had stayed to help when he had the chance to escape, so Harry had a hard time fathoming exactly what his goals were.

A half-baked answer came when Knight returned from spying on the nights events.

He had explained the events leading up to the call to arms, including Voldemort's plans to attack the royalty of England and completely circumvent the Ministry of Magic who now, were try to sever all ties with the muggle world so as to not be influenced by Voldemort, but with the Dark Lord's minions already in the ministry, this proved to be difficult and the beginnings of a political uproar was beginning.

Wormtail, Knight said, hadn't exactly defected, but he had fought under his own steam; presumably to try to right the wrongs he had caused against Harry. The Baron didn't believe it for a second.

Hermione however didn't give a rat's arse about Wormtail, she was trying to figure out how in one night, Voldemort had managed to completely overwhelm and take out one of the most important figureheads in the world. Her subconscious already had the answer without her thinking much; the Barons had kept the military out of it.

If the military had gotten wind of what was going on, they would have completely overwhelmed the Death Eaters. Instead, Voldemort had positioned himself as the new overlord of Great Britain and was just awaiting a new crown to complete the ceremony.

Harry asked if Knight knew what was going on with the military now, but Knight had limited time to find out those details, but promised he'd look into it when he was next out.

The werewolves were very attuned to the idea of building caves nearby and the protection of a fidelius meant that the children and those that no longer wanted to fight had somewhere to stay.

Harry voiced a concern over the amount of food that was available for that many werewolves.

Remus suggested it might not be a problem in the immediate future because of the forests around the mountains but Fenrir grinned mysteriously and told them not to be concerned, the issue was well in hand.

Instead, Fenrir's main concern was isolating the werewolves so they didn't attack each other or "you rogues" on the full moon as they were now lacking the funds and a competent potions master to brew Wolfsbane.

'The Rogues' was a term that the werewolves had coined the band that followed the Barons, and since nobody went out of their way to stop them from using the name, it stuck.

This problem of the full moon turned out to be a tricky issue and it gave Harry, Hermione and a team of werewolves two weeks to develop a ward that was completely intangible under normal circumstances, but when the moonbeams of a full moon touched the ward, it would become a solid barrier strong enough to keep the werewolves inside. The process was a learning experience for them because it was nothing like developing a new spell to cause death and destruction.

Likewise, the insides of the caves needed to be charmed so that the werewolves couldn't dig themselves out or even worse, cause a cave in that would bury them alive.

It was certainly a task that without proper thought could have easily gone wrong and perfectly illustrated why it was not a good idea to house the werewolves in the main cave.

So it was that they built a small community with the werewolves.

Cynwise and Luna had no longer become a major problem for Harry to deal with as they found themselves quite content to play with the group of twenty to thirty children suffering from Lycanthropy which in turn helped improve relations between the impression of vampires amongst the werewolves.

Still, when Cynwise was feeling grown up, she would help out the werewolves with their caves and sneaking into their old homes to retrieve gear.

When Remus and McGonagall were bored, they would each apparate to random towns and look for a justice of the peace to marry their young Lord, but it was actually Cynwise who found the solution.

When posed with the question "What exactly does marriage mean to you?" Harry went into a process of deep thought and mumbled about promises, oaths, kisses and a justice of the peace which, when translated for Cynwise, became "A really important person."

Cynwise of course knew exactly what a justice of the peace was and just wanted him to get rid of the muggle implication so that she could tell him she'd already talked Uncle Dotty into organising it for them.

"Married by a vampire?" Hermione asked incredulously. "Well, I suppose stranger things have happened. It might be interesting."

Cynwise had an ulterior motive in having them wedded by vampires. She needed to facilitate a meeting between Harry and organise an alliance between them. What she hadn't realised was that the vampires had already chosen where their loyalties lie.

Harry quite liked meeting the old vamp. It was a much more pleasant experience than sitting down with Voldemort.

Smart fellow too; as soon as the Barons arrived with Cynwise and Luna, the two vampires were directed to where a couple of other vampires with the same childish affliction were, allowing Dotworthy to speak alone with Harry and Hermione.

Dotworthy gave the impression that he was more of a butler than a leader. He was tall, a simple moustache trimmed nicely, a monacle and looked rather stiff.

He led them to a large botanic garden with some of the most unusual trees. Many of them had white leaves that were little more than an outline of a leaf.

The trunks of the trees all looked decayed and withered. Occasionally, every now and then was a Japanese Sakura blossom, an old English oak or another tree that characterised a certain country.

Upon seeing their unanswered question, Dotworthy spoke for the first time. "This place is a vampiric wonder of the world. In the fourteenth century, a vampire botanist created this garden of undead plants. Unfortunately he was killed in the sixteenth century and took the secret of these plants with him."

"Incredible." Hermione mumbled, observing, but not touching the plants.

"We owe you a great deal of thanks." Harry said earnestly to the man.

"You owe us nothing." He observed. "It was an opportunity to pay off a debt that Cynwise has hung over my head for the last two hundred years."

Harry gave a questioning look, but no explanation was forthcoming. As much as Harry found himself really wanting to know how Cynwise had achieved a debt that had allowed her to call upon so many vampires to aid them at Erskine, it seemed rude to vocally pursue that information.

"Well we appreciate it. I'm sure that it will cause a lot of problems with Voldemort."

"The problem we have with Voldemort is in Voldemort's own nature. We were hesitant to enter an agreement with him to start with. I believe his terms of agreement were 'I shall allow you all the pleasure of serving me.' That arrogant fool. We would have joined him if nothing more than to improve our own life when he won as we had little doubt that he would until that brat Cynwise showed up talking about the Last Dark Lord. Then it was clear what we had to do."

Harry was mildly surprised by what he was saying. After all, any information the vampires had on him was second-hand information unless they had been at the meeting after the murder of Augustus Longbottom.

"Cynwise had told us repeatedly that there is no mistake that you are the one we should be putting our faith in and while I would never say it to her face, I do trust her judgement, but I want to hear it from your mouth as it is a little hard to believe. Are you, a wizard of mediocre strength, really the Last Dark Lord?"

Harry thought on the question for little more than a moment. "I am, yes."

"Do not be concerned by Harry's lack of power," Hermione quipped from beside him. "The issue is being addressed."

"It pleases me to hear that." Dotworthy replied. "It will be difficult to rally complete support from the other vampires while you present the image of such a weak wizard."

Harry scowled and Dotworthy caught the look. Half a second later, he was standing behind the young Baron.

Hermione had barely seen him move and if not for the previous sentence, she would have dashed to Harry's side to help. But she knew from what the vampire had said that this was a test.

Harry ducked to avoid the elbow that would have snapped his spine in half and pulled on the hilt of his sword, hitting the vampire in the groin. Spinning around, he fired an expelliarmus at him, sending him backwards, but before the vamp ever hit the ground, he was standing in front of Harry again, drawing his own sword.

Moving faster than Harry knew he could, he fully unsheathed his sword and blocked the vampire.

"Not bad for a human."

Harry blocked another shot, working purely on reaction. However the vampire had hundreds of years of experience that Harry did not.

He twisted his head to avoid getting the blade through his head and wondered if the master of the vampire clan truly was trying to kill him, but deep down he already knew that answer. If he couldn't hold Dotworthy at bay, there was no way he would get the respect of the other vampires.

More than likely, the vampire had intended to demonstrate exactly how weak Harry was to prove his point. Hermione mused as she watched the swordplay progress

After a couple more nicks to his body, Harry grinned. Dotworthy may have had hundreds of years of experience but Harry had the advantage of magic.

Using his left hand, he released his magic and called upon a hasty 'protego'. He barely had enough time to perform it correctly and ended up with a very small shield that blocked the sword and shattered, allowing the blade to shallowly cut into Harry's hand.

Dotworthy stared at him in surprise, his eyes wondering to the sword resting against his neck.

"I could cut your head off now and in the time it took you to regenerate it, I could pierce your heart easily."

"Yes, you could."

They lowered their weapons and Harry looked disgustedly at his hand. If his protego had been any weaker he would have lost the top half of it. He ran a cauterizing charm over the cut and looked at the shaken Vampire.

"It would appear that I completely underestimated you." Dotworthy had intended to kill him of course, but he had not expected that Harry would create an opportunity to turn the tables as he had. He had been careless.

"Perhaps you did, I might have lost if you had a way to test my magical power, but even then you wouldn't have an accurate picture of what I am capable of as I do not rely on my magic exclusively and I do not rely on my sword either.

"You're lucky that this was a test otherwise you would have found yourself impaled by a wooden stake from my fiancee." Harry replied.

Dotworthy had forgotten about her and looked at her cold, hard face. She was not impressed by the impromptu test.

"You have convinced me Baron Black, but you will need to demonstrate an amazing ability to the other vampires in order to rally them collectively under your banner. We vampires live by the idea that actions speak louder than words, and a truly impressive speech will not move stone hearts such as ours."

"Once we've completed our ritual, I'm sure we'll be able to manage something."

"Very well. Then let us speak of the matter that Cynwise brought you before me for. I have one vampire who also moonlights as a muggle priest for late night sermons. He is fully capable of marrying you in the muggle world as well as wizarding."

Harry sniggered, and upon being asked what he thought was so funny, replied that it was amusing that the stereotypical vampire from a muggle movie could not enter a church or walk upon "Hallowed Ground" as he had heard in one particular movie. The old man sniffed in distaste and reached for his neck.

"I can organise this for you," Dotworthy said, rubbing his neck as if trying to reaffirm that it hadn't been lopped off. "But I have terms and conditions for this service."

Harry sighed. Everybody had terms and conditions for everything. But as he was learning, that was just simply the way the world worked. Nobody did anything if there was nothing to gain from it, doubly so in the world of politics.

"We're listening."

The leader of the vampires impressed upon them the importance of giving an impression to the vampires that the Last Dark Lord and his wife were not weak by any means. The wedding was to be conducted in front of an audience of vampires and would be used as a foundation for proving that the two of them would be a pillar of strength for the vampiric community worldwide.

The concept completely confounded Harry. To him, he had seen a couple of weddings from afar and all he could see were women crying and saying how beautiful it was. The idea of such a... a 'masculine', for lack of a better word, wedding seemed rather foreign.

He looked towards Hermione with eyebrows raised and asked what she thought of it.

"I'm okay with the idea in theory, but before I commit myself to the idea I want to hear exactly what you have in mind. But I am not averse to using a reducto to juice an apple."

Dotworthy postponed the meeting until he could get the priest in on the meeting to discuss things.

Harry sighed and looked at the list of ingredients required for the potion. It was a long list that made him shudder every time he read it. He really didn't want to put it in his mouth, but he needed a full sixteen doses of it, taken every 6 hours.

Hermione and Harry would take their last dose shortly after the wedding it was decided.

"May as well consummate your wedding with a bang." Remus had suggested mischievously. McGonagall was not impressed, but neither Harry nor Hermione said anything to suggest they wouldn't do it.

Harry frowned at the thought. It would take two months to make the potion and with the priest being rather open ended as to when the wedding would take place, it was left to the Barons to organise whatever they needed beforehand.

He started looking over his list of ingredients of what he needed and what he would need to get.

With a wave of his wand, he went to check and make sure that the ashes he'd gotten from Fawkes were enough.

Lifting the lid, he got quite a shock. The ashes were missing. Completely gone.

"Something the matter?" The Sorting Hat asked as he stepped into the study room to get a book.

"Yeah." He grumbled. "Someone has stolen my phoenix ash."

"Oh yeah, sorry about that, Remus and Minerva took it to put in the potion."

"They WHAT!?" Harry threw the pot on the ground in anger, shattering it and grabbed the hat from its peak. "You asked them to start making it didn't you?"

"I knew that eventually you'd come around. They've been working on it ever since the prophecy; it just needs the two sacrifices."

"Oh am I going to have words with them." Harry said darkly, "And YOU are going to stop suggesting things to people without my knowing."

"Yes my Lord." The hat said unabashed.

Harry simmered as he strode to the front door, not seeing Hermione poke her head out of the bathroom and mutter a drying charm. "Harry?"

"Accio Minerva, Accio Remus!" He called out, releasing his magic to its fullest extent.

It took a few seconds before he heard a pair of screams heading straight for him. His anger was quickly diffused as he realised exactly how stupid it was to do that when first his ex-transfiguration teacher and then his ex-defence teacher both bowled into him, knocking him winded onto the floor.

"Mister Potter! That it just rude! You can't just summon people like that!"

"Given the fact that you're both petty thieves, I don't see why I can't!" Harry shouted at them.

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb. My potions ingredients are missing, some particularly rare ones."

"You're not accusing us are you?"

"The ones that are missing are suspiciously present on this list!" He said shoving the parchment with the potion on it in their faces.

"Oh." They both said, looking guilty.

"Oh is right!"

Harry stared them down as if they were a pair of kids who had just stolen candy from Zonkos. "It's bad enough that you went and made this potion for yourselves, but you're both grown adults and you are able to think for yourselves. If I wanted to take that potion, I would have made it for myself!

"What do you have to say for yourselves!?"

"Uhh... the Hat made us do it."

"So much for being able to think for yourselves." Harry grumbled as his anger seeped out of him. Yelling at them didn't change much, but punishing them would certainly make him feel better. After thinking about it, he decided that the two of them would go and raid Lucius Malfoy's house and liberate all the books from it.

They both looked surprised at the 'punishment' when Harry explained that he needed a decent wedding gift to give to Hermione. He summoned his father's invisibility cloak and handed it to Remus.

"Before you go... Where is this potion? Is it safe to bring it here?" The teenager asked them.

Minerva nodded.

"Bring it here. Are you both sure you made it perfectly?"

"It's perfect Harry." Remus told him. "Cynwise, Luna and Knight helped make sure it was stirred properly at the correct times."

Harry sighed, defeated. "So you were all in on it?"

"The only thing any of us weren't willing to do was force it down your throats."

"I would have kicked your arses. Go on, get out of here." He said with a smile as he waved them out of his home.

Hermione came out of her hiding spot. "You know Harry, if you're going to give a girl a surprise gift, you really ought to wait until she's out of earshot."

Harry turned on the spot and saw Hermione with nothing but a towel on, wrapped around her body, but leaving little to imagination.

"Oh damn." Harry said. "I thought you were still in the bath." Then stupidly added afterwards, "Wow..."

"You've waited this long Harry Potter, you can wait a little longer."

"I really regret those words now you know."

Hermione smiled. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"Great..." Harry said with a fake grimace. "Everybody is taking stuff from me..." He glanced over to check that nobody had stolen his sword.

"Then allow me to further steal a kiss." She said, placing her lips upon his.

Remus and McGonagall appeared a second later with a large golden cauldron. Harry wondered where they'd gotten their hands on such a cauldron but Remus said that Knight had stolen it from the Dark Lord and framed Severus for it by putting a few drops of grease on the ground where it had been. Severus being such an experienced occlumens with too many secrets to keep meant that Voldemort could not check that claim's validity so when it came down to a matter of trust, Severus was punished accordingly.

This news made Harry grin appropriately. Remus had wished Knight had been at Hogwarts at the same time as them, he'd have made a hell of a marauder. "I just know how to cover my arse." Knight had told him with a wink.

"So what's left to be done?"

"It's been ready for a while, we've just been waiting on the two sacrifices, then just add the murtlap and leave to sit until your first dose at 5:34 in the following morning."

Hermione initiated a levitation spell on the cauldron. "Two sacrifices huh?" she muttered as she moved it towards his training hall with everyone following in her wake and sat it down in front of their captives. "I think I know just the redhead for the job." Harry wove his hands wide, activating the anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards before cancelling the three stasis spells and turning the rat back into a human who found his face smudged against the wall.

"Any last words?" Hermione asked.

"Hermione you bitch!" Ron shouted.

"You fucking mudblood!" Draco screamed. "I'm going to feed you to a fucking horntail."

"Do I have to face the wall? I've got sand in my teeth." Wormtail complained.

Hermione grinned. "I was hoping you'd be a bit more creative than that, but I guess it was asking too much of someone with your intelligence levels."

Ron opened his mouth to say something but was silenced before he could even exhale.

"You've said your last words, wasted as they were." She said.

"What are you going to do Potter?" Draco asked him.

Harry grinned and put his arm around Hermione. "Nothing much little ferret. We're just going to cut out a few vital organs for a little potion."

Draco paled. "You're lying! Even the Dark Lord himself would not carelessly use human components in a potion!"

"We're not carelessly using you. There has been a lot of thought put into this." Harry replied. "We'll do anything it takes."

"Even sacrificing a couple of selfish purebloods who seem to think the world should bow down in front of them." Hermione continued. "Ron, before I kill you, I want you to know that you never had a chance of with me. My heart would never belong to you."

Ron smirked.

"Rest assured though, your heart belongs to me now." She said lowly. "Pectus constrictio animus." The spell seemingly had no effect on Ron, and certainly wouldn't have visibly anyway, but when Hermione cut his heart out using a diffindo, she had bound his soul to his heart. An ethereal scream echoed through the room as she removed his sternum and gently pulled out his heart and took it to the cauldron and squeezed the blood out of it and cleaned it up using a few cutting spells before placing the heart in as well.

Draco had been silenced by Harry the moment he started screaming, even still, his mouth seemed permanently open as he silently prayed for some escape. He started thrashing but he couldn't break the binds that held him to that wall.

The adults present stared on looking mildly green. They had seen death, they had seen gruesome acts, but to watch it happening and trying not to interfere because they felt it needed to be done, but each of them couldn't help but wonder if the means justified the end.

Hermione turned to Draco now, and chanted another incantation, "Mens contrictio animus." The purpose of the spell was to bind his soul to his brain. She hesitated for a moment before slicing his skull and trying not to lop off the top of his brain too otherwise they'd need to use Wormtail after all.

Draco's eyes went wide when he felt his cranial bone sliding around and tried biting Hermione's hands when she tried to reach into his skull.

When she tried to go from above, he tilted his head upwards and the bone slid to the floor, complete with his hair and skin still attached.

Everyone just stared at it for a moment before Hermione tried summoning his brain, but Draco had only just enough raw magical power to resist the summons. He could not however, resist Harry trying it and a similar ghostly scream echoed as his soul was ripped from his body.

So it was that Harry held in his hands, Draco Malfoy's brain and tried not to be grossed out. He had held hearts before, but he had never held someone's brain before.

Even Hermione looked a bit green and said gently. "Just slip it in Harry."

"Right, just slip it in." Harry nodded and robotically walked to the cauldron and dumped the brain into the cauldron.

"Now it's just his liver right? Was it the brain person or the heart?"

"Better make it Ron... I don't trust that Malfoy hadn't been drinking before he double-crossed us." Harry said half-seriously.

"Erm... it was the... er... it was the heart donor." Remus said reading from the parchment and trying to look anywhere but at the bodies.

"Right." Hermione said as she extracted the liver from the person who had tried to kill her.

"Are you alright there Wormtail?" Harry asked as he saw a pool of liquid forming around his feet. "You don't need to be worried just yet, you're not apart of this." Harry released the sticking charm on the rat and summoned his wand. "But I thought I'd let you see that before we interrogate you."

"Professor McGonagall, could you please go and get the murlap." Hermione asked as she stirred the potion and watched it turn a sickly green as the body organs floating on top of the potion dissolved. Minerva nodded her head and stepped from the cave quickly, eager to get away from the deformed bodies of two of her students.

"Wait, this isn't right..." But even as she said it, the potion turned a brilliant white. "Oh, there we go... maybe that was supposed to happen..."

"Remus, could you please take Pettigrew to our holding cells. I shall speak to him before the night is over."

Remus nodded.

"And get the man a change of underwear. Scourgify." Harry said screwing up his face.

While Remus was taking Wormtail to the holding cells, Harry looked over his partner's shoulder. "Are you sure that everything is okay?"

"I don't remember reading about that change in colour, but everything seems to be in order now. The colour is perfect."

"I can't believe I'm going to be drinking essence of Ron and Draco." He said with a disgusted look on his face.

"What should we do with their bodies?"

"I suppose we could just dump them in front of the ministry." Harry remarked. "or maybe just leave them in Hogsmeade somewhere."

Minerva returned with the murtlap and gave it to Hermione who added it immediately, stirred it and put a spell to surround the cauldron to stop anybody else from touching it until the morning.

"Tomorrow, Harry and I will start taking this." She said firmly. "Voldemort and Dumbledore are going to regret what they've done."

Their teacher nodded and left them where Harry and Hermione retreated to their study and talked about what was wrong with the world and how they'd going about fixing it.

Harry's earlier declaration that he was without a doubt the Last Dark Lord made Hermione smile. As she teased him about it, Harry just shook his head and admitted that he was just doing what felt right. If he fulfilled a prophecy and there were no further dark lords or the world ended, then that's how it would be. He didn't care, all he wanted at the moment was to pretend that there was nothing wrong with the world and just live with her and the others.

Hermione had to agree with him. She too was feeling worn out by being pushed around by everybody's plans. For now they were both was quite content to let Dumbledore deal with Voldemort while they eloped on a honeymoon.

With Hermione dedicated to fixing the injustices of the world, Knight came in and announced that they now had enough food to last everyone in their hideaway for a month. The Barons Black balked when they saw the volume of food that was back in his cave. Knight admitted that he and the werewolves had filched it from a muggle warehouse and suddenly Harry felt an urge to obtain a warehouse full of drills from a place called Grunnings, an idea he might put aside for later.

After eating a communal dinner with everyone including their two vampires and Fenrir whom the Blacks had taken a liking to, the troop took a trip down to the relatively new holding cells to visit their resident rat.

Wormtail was looking rather sorry for himself when Harry and Remus approached him.

"Peter." Harry said simply, getting his attention. "What are your intentions Peter?"

He shrugged. "I'm not sure."

"Knight told me he dragged your arse off to our fight when you had your own to fight, yet even left unattended, you still helped us out. Why?"

He shrugged again. "Would my answers change anything? You're going to kill me no matter what I say."

"I would have already if not for the fact that you fought on my side without my asking you to, but regardless of whether I kill you or not, I want to hear for myself why you betrayed my parents."

"I don't know."

Harry's eyes flared. "You don't know!? Do you mean to tell me you just woke up one morning and said 'Nice weather today, I think I might go and have my best friends killed.'!?"

"I'm sorry, that came out wrong. What I meant was, I don't remember." The amendment made Harry pause.

"Explain."

What Peter described was a classic case of Dumbledore obliviating someone to gain something. Harry's parents had gone into hiding using the fidelius and then waited for them to get comfortable before obliviating Pettigrew into thinking he was a Death Eater. A real surprise for him when he went to report to the Dark Lord who had no clue at all who he was and almost had him killed until Wormtail had offered the information Dumbledore had sent him with.

Voldemort had seen through the whole thing and gave him the Dark Mark before briefly explaining Dumbledore's regime to Peter. The news that he had been obliviated had shocked Peter to the core and was given time to digest the news while Voldemort left to kill Lily and James.

By the time that Wormtail had realised what was going on, it was too late to save his friends.

Voldemort never returned that night and while many Death Eaters blamed him, he didn't care so much about that as the fact that he had betrayed his friends.

When Sirius caught up with him, he was still rather dazed and killed the muggles and went into hiding without realising the implications of what it would mean for Sirius. All he had wanted at that point was to hide safely, and the only place that seemed safe for him would be to help Voldemort win. He couldn't sink any lower could he?

When he had finished his story, Harry didn't feel any better about him and neither did Remus.

Moony asked him why he didn't try explaining his way out of it when they'd discovered him, Wormtail answered with another question. "Would you have believed me anyway? Sirius wanted nothing more than to kill me that day. Trying to explain that Dumbledore was manipulating everyone would not have made up for the fact that he spent years in Azkaban that he didn't deserve. Even I know that. If he hadn't escaped I would have set him free when we broke out Bellatrix and the other death eaters. Then I would have explained it to him and he'd probably still be alive today!"

Peter really had been between a rock and a hard place.

"Here's the deal." Harry said after a while of thought. "If you want to live, you can live. I will even allow you to live here, but don't expect the werewolves to be happy with your presence. You sold them out more than you sold us out."

Fenrir added a growl as if to reinforce the statement.

"If you want to die, I can arrange that to."

"What are you going to do?" Pettigrew asked.

"My plans are my own until you've proven yourself trustworthy enough to hear them." Harry replied stonily.

As Harry turned his head to leave, Peter grabbed his hand. "Harry, I want you to believe me that the only reason I brought the Dark Lord back was because I knew he was the only one who could kill Dumbledore!"

"You're asking me to forgive the middle-man." He replied. "I can't do that. Not while it hurts so much." He looked at Remus. "Let him go, put him up in one of the spare caves if he desires. Fenrir, the werewolves most certainly don't have to be nice to him, but I have given him sanctuary here for now."

"That'll be difficult, but I'm sure that if I threaten them with your wrath it should be fine." He said with a grin.

Harry and Hermione made a lame attempt at getting some sleep which was not an easy task with thoughts of both Dumbledore and Voldemort having a hand in killing his parents and the fact that soon, his life would change forever more.

In a few days, they would have finished their potion, they'd be married and if all went well, later on he'd be a father, and he'd have the all the power he needed to take down two dark lords and he swore to himself and Hermione in the middle of the night that if any other would-be dark lords cropped up, he'd make sure they were cut down to size before him. His children would grow up in a safe world.

They were awoken by Cynwise before dawn and she told them to make pancakes for her. Harry grumbled in annoyance but still lacerated his arm for her so that she could have her blood-flavoured pancakes for dinner, or breakfast, or whatever it was.

Harry and Hermione each had a more normal breakfast, bathed and changed into fresh clothes and then checked on the potion with both Luna and Cynwise staying up much past their bedtimes to watch the event, the master holding onto her pet Osfrid.

"Any idea what's going to happen when we down these?"

"Not really, I've calculated what the potion will do, but all I know is that you will experience something, but what that something is depends entirely on the person."

Harry nodded and spooned out the first dosage of the potion into a bowl, one for Hermione, one for himself and replaced the spell on the cauldron.

"Bottoms up my love." Harry said as he put the bowl to his lips and downing what felt like 15 blocks of sugar cubes that just glided down his throat. It tasted sickly sweet, yet kind of meaty, and something else that Harry couldn't quite find a definite flavour for. It reminded him of an appetizer, main course, dessert and rat poison all mixed together.

Harry's eye twitched as the last of the mix went down his throat and just like that, he was out like a light bulb, slumped to the floor.

Harry awoke to find himself in a forest, with soft moss pressed against his naked back. He groaned as if he'd been asleep for hours. His body felt so heavy.

'Where am I?' He wondered. 'Did they screw up making the potion and kill me instead?' It seemed to be the most likely answer.

He tried to breathe in deep, but it was as if the air was so dense it was almost as if he were breathing in a liquid.

Harry pushed himself to his feet and started looking for any sign of life. His afterlife would be rather boring, not to mention lonely if there was nobody else around, especially if Hermione wasn't here too.

What he didn't know however was that he was not alone in this forest. There were a total of three creatures beside him and Harry was walking away from the closest of them. The creature could only really be described as a translucent floating head. It was completely missing it's neck and anything below.

"That bastard Harry..." Ron's voice complained. "What the hell happened to me? Where's my body? How am I supposed to eat properly without my body! Maybe I got splinched."

So Ron's task for the time was to look around the place for his missing body.

Another such creature looked different depending on the perspective. Unlike Ron who, if he had found his body would have found it translucent, the creature would have been almost invisible form Harry's perspective, yet was completely opaque to her own perspective.

"Is this a vision?" Hermione asked herself. "I still feel alive..." She said as she pinched her arm. "Osfrid did say that we'd have an experience, but I don't know if we're supposed to accomplish something or if I'm just supposed to observe..." She mused and figured that whatever she was supposed to do, hanging around in one spot was not going to help.

She wondered around for what felt like days of forest when she heard an unnatural rustling in the leaves. Curious, she moved to where the sound came from and as she pulled the branches back, she heard an inhuman scream and something dashed towards her.

"You bitch! I'll kill you! I'll kill you and Potter both!" Hermione fell backwards in shock as whatever it was flew over her head and when she turned back, she found an almost invisible head rolling around on the ground.

"Draco?" She asked in surprise as the owner of the voice registered in her head.

"You think you can sacrifice me! I don't care if I don't have a body, I'll bite your fucking head off!"

Hermione smirked and reached for her wand, which wasn't there. Nothing was there.

She looked in shock as she realised that she had been in this forest for who knows how long and she only just now realised that she didn't even have a bra or underwear on!

She bit back a scream of embarrassment and instead reached her hand out and called out "Obliterate!"

Draco cringed but nothing happened.

"My magic..!"

Draco grinned nastily as he turned on her. "Even better..."

So Draco dashed towards her and clamped his teeth down on her neck, tearing muscle Sinew away, leaving Hermione desperately trying to pull him off unsuccessfully until she passed out from a lack of blood.

Meanwhile, Harry was climbing a tree, trying to ascertain his position. As he poked his head out of the canopy and looked around, all he could see was trees, all the same height that looked almost like a floor you could walk on for as far as the eyes could see.

As he looked around, he noticed that in one direction, there appeared to be a wall that extended as high as the heavens and reached infinitely in either direction. Harry thought that would be a good place to go for, even if it did mean backtracking and cursed himself for not checking in the first place.

So Harry set off, not caring how long it took to reach.

Harry sat bolt upright, sweating. "I'm not dead..."

He was back in his cave, lying on the floor next to the cauldron.

Hermione wasn't far from him; she was shivering and holding her neck.

Harry subconsciously reached for his heart and felt to make sure that it wasn't eaten or otherwise missing.

"Wow, what happened? You both look scared as sheep." Cynwise asked.

"How... how long were we out for?"

Cynwise smiled. "About five minutes."

Harry was surprised, but said nothing. "Are you alright love?" He asked his fiancee.

Hermione nodded. "I think I was killed by Draco Malfoy."

"Yeah, Ron got me." Harry affirmed. "What did you see?"

Hermione described the same forest that Harry was in as much detail as she could remember, leaving nothing out.

Harry was surprised that she was naked, but thinking back, he realised that he had been too, Harry was able to expound on what she had said by talking about what he saw above the trees.

They were each a bit shaky but realised that it had been little more than a vision.

"I was hoping there'd be a big kaboom or something." Cynwise pouted. "That was really disappointing."

"Albus Dumbledore!" The voice assaulted Dumbledore like a physical weapon it sounded so horrible. "You told us that Tom Riddle was contained and unable to affect our society. Now look at us!"

"I assure you Elenore, Tom will be removed from the picture as soon as possible."

"The most powerful wizard in the world Dumbledore, and you're telling me that you are not able to remove him from the picture right now?"

Dumbledore twinkled gently at the old crone and his fellow members of the Wizengamot. "As I have told you in the past, things are not as simple as that. Tom Riddle must be dealt with as the rules of the prophecy dictate. I cannot kill Riddle, the only boy that can is Harry Potter."

"Whom you seem to have misplaced." Archibald Lumberyard called.

"He will return to me as he always does." Hogwarts' headmaster told them confidently. "I have put in place plans, but for now we just need to wait."

He glanced around the room. He hated these fools. They needed to be put into their place far too often. "If that is in order, let us move to the next item on the agenda.

"Defence of the ministry, how are the trainee aurors progressing?"

"The accelerated learning program has been good for them."

"Excellent," Dumbledore called. "Have them double the dose of learning potion and triple their hours."

"They're already training sixteen hours a day!" Someone called.

"So?" Umbridge asked.

"We need those aurors Elder Pobbles. Voldemort has control of England and we need defences to ensure he doesn't get control of us as well before he can be taken out."

There was a murmur of assent and the motion was passed.

Harry jumped from one rock to the next, careful not to fall in. He was missing the tips of his left hand from touching the water, but it seemed to him that he needed to cross the river if he were to make it to the wall.

Every time he entered this dream, either Draco or Ron would kill them and they would wake up again. The spirits of the two sacrificed souls seemed to be in both their heads and with every dose of the potions, the heads became bigger and more opaque.

Thankfully, every time Harry reappeared in this world, seemed like he was still the same distance from the wall as he had been the previous visit, so he had theorised that his goal was to get to the wall in less than sixteen doses, but now it looked like he might even reach there in five.

Despite the fact that he and Hermione were both seeing the same vision, he had seen no sign of her, though they had both agreed to head towards the wall where they would etch a sign of which direction the other had followed and hopefully, one would catch up with the other before the sixteenth dose.

It was just a hunch, but that's what they felt they needed to achieve with these visions. They had to find each other.

With another jump, Harry landed on the other bank and started walking towards the wall. It towered in front of him. This was his third dose, and if he kept going at the same rate as he had been he might even reach the wall in this dose.

So he thought to himself happily before the telltale rustle of leaves told him that one of the vengeful spirits was around.

"Potter! I'm going to kill you once and for all this time!"

Voldemort sat on his throne. He was not a happy person, he had taken control of Britain but those stubborn fools at the Ministry of Magic still refused to acknowledge his authority over them.

He adjusted the crown on his head. It was a good fake, but he would settle for nothing less than the best, but that was why he had a rogue arithmancer named Jackal looking at the original crown and trying to discern how the enchantments on it were done.

He had plans that needed to be done and as Lucius left his presence, he felt better about certain projects that would soon come to bear fruit.

His attack on St Mungos would be fun to watch as they had just elected a new leader for the British military. The man was ruthless and borderline psychotic, but he was smart enough to hide his desires for carnage behind a mask that men could respect. It had been a pain for Lucius to hunt down such a man.

It would be interesting when the anti-muggle wards and charms fell and they would storm through the building killing everybody.

Tom Riddle hated muggles with a vengeance, but they were so plentiful that it seemed impossible to not use them expendably.

He would enjoy putting a thousand of them under the imperius and running them through the ministry of magic armed with those 'guns' which broke through protego shields quickly, and their rocket launchers seemed almost unforgivable too.

Still, when push came to shove, his nemesis Harry Potter, the one whose death would guide him to immortality, had taken out an entire military base and his strongest, most capable warrior witch.

It was clear that the Dark Lord needed to take care of the little upstart himself, but finding the Baron was proving to be more difficult than anybody else could handle, he had hidden himself and the legion of werewolves well.

And lastly, there was his research on immortality. He needed the power of a star-crossed. The mudblood named Hermione was the ideal choice as she seemed to be the most powerful of them all. This made the dark lord regret not taking her from Potter when he had the chance, but now he had to settle for second best. He hated settling for second best.

Voldemort had already found the key to immortality before he even overthrew the royalty of Britain, but he had found that his body, recreated from a ritual was incompatible with the spell, and thus, he needed a newborn child to overwrite with his own being with which to perform the spell on.

There were of course problems with that. Leaving his current body would make physical touch from Potter a problem once again, he needed a body which had Potter's blood flowing through it's veins which meant he had to sire the child himself but that in itself was impossible, but he wouldn't admit to his Death Eaters that he was impotent.

He had told them that it was below him to dirty himself with a half-blood and so his research on immortality close to complete, he turned to finding alternative means of creating this body he so desired.

Little did Voldemort know that when he had asked his best researchers to look into the problem, they had already guessed his little problem and it was a bit of a joke among them. It was a dangerous joke to keep because if the Dark Lord probed their minds and accidentally stumbled across it, they were in for a world of hurt.

Ron Weasley, or the spirit thereof floated aimlessly. He was hungry again, but that was no surprise; he was always hungry. It surprised him that no matter how many times he savaged the ones who killed him and brought him to this awful world he never felt sated.

There was nothing to do in this world and it felt like he'd been trapped in here for years and the only thing to bide his time was that moment when he would feel energised and grow in size. He was roughly half the size of the trees now, far taller than either Hermione or Harry. When he next had that feeling, he would know it was time to start his hunt again, and this time, he would bite his prey clear in two.

It was a surprise to him when he floated into a clearing and found the ethereal head of the other one. A face that he hated.

"Malfoy. I always had a feeling that you were here too."

"Weasley. I could smell you a mile away."

"I assume you're the one who has been killing the ones that I have missed." Ron asked him.

"Naturally, there's nobody else here, the only other living things here are trees."

"So what did you do to get on their bad side?"

Malfoy's first instinct was to give a snarky reply, but after all this time being lonely, even he wanted someone to talk to. "My father and I set a trap for them, but I grossly miscalculated. I hadn't counted on Granger going crazy and killing everybody in the room." He smirked. "What about you? What broke up the golden trio?"

"Dumbledore promised me Hermione, and she resisted,"

"That's right, I'd forgotten about Dumbledore and his pawns."

"Once perhaps, but not then. Dumbledore took me aside one day and told me that he needed someone else to help control the wizarding world, thought it was a pretty good deal and he explained a few things to me and had me obliviate a few people around the school was an easy life and I got whatever I wanted as long as I didn't piss the old man off."

Ron and Draco talked for a length of time until they ran out of things they were willing to divulge, never once was there an apology between them for anything in the past however.

"Do you think we'll be able to leave here if we get powerful enough?" Ron asked.

"Boring as it is here, I kind of like being able to kill Potter and Granger over and over again." Draco drawled. "But it would be good to take this power back to our world if we could."

Ron nodded in appreciation, but he still wanted to leave.

Draco and Ron had taken to travelling the land together. It was a lot more interesting than wondering around aimlessly while waiting for their prey to arrive. It took a full two months for the spectres before either of them he felt the familiar surge through their bodies, that signalled the time for a new hunt. This time however, the surge was accompanied with a bout of pain which neither appreciated at the nape of their necks.

He and Draco both screamed as power ripped through them both, unable to keep themselves afloat, they each dropped to the ground and felt something oozing out the back of their heads. Ron also feeling like his mouth was becoming rather cramped, and as the pain receded, they both felt a reminiscent feeling of movement.

Ron stared in surprise as he got to his new feet and looked at Draco who had become a ferret with a human head. His vision seemed clearer than ever before and Draco pushed himself upwards with his paws and stared wide-eyed at Ron.

"Wha-" Ron sounded like he had a mouth full of pie when he spoke.

"You- You have a spider's body!"

"I HAB WHA!?" Ron spun around only to find that he was incapable of looking at his body.

"Wait a minute, what am I?" Draco asked as he stared at his paws. "Oh no... don't tell me. Anything but this! The indignity of it all!" He complained.

Ron slumped frustrated to the ground. "If this happened, we can assume that those two are here again. I'm going to make them pay for this!" He flashed poisonous fangs and scampered away towards the wall, Draco in tow.

Not so far away, Harry sighed happily. He'd made it. Reaching out and touching it, the wall was smooth. It had taken him 8 doses after all to reach the wall as Ron and Draco had been getting quicker and quicker at locating him.

He looked around and grabbed a rock that was lying beneath a tree and started carving into the wall. "Harry..." He smirked and continued, "loves Hermione" He sighed happily and looked around. He had to pick a direction to start walking and if he picked the wrong direction, he'd never meet up with Hermione. He didn't get to travel long though as he was soon confronted by the two ugliest monsters ever seen.

Harry wanted to laugh at Ron, but the menacing look on his face was enough to make him run away as fast as he could when a flash of white shot past the spider and the ferret with Malfoy's face mauled him once more.

He shot awake and spent a couple of seconds pushing himself upwards. He glanced at Hermione who was out of it a minute longer than he had been and theorised that he had been eaten first. He couldn't believe what he'd seen though; Ron, a spider, and Malfoy, a ferret. Surely that was anything but coincidence.

Hermione pushed herself upwards and yawned. "I'm starting to miss normal dreams." She said with a frown.

"I made it to the wall today." Harry told her with a smile.

His partner nodded back.

"Did you happen to notice which way those two came from?" Harry asked.

Hermione thought silently and made movements with her hand as if calculating direction and then nodded. "If you're facing the wall, then they came from my right."

"Good, then I'll head left on our next dose."

Hermione nodded. "Was there something different about Ron and Draco when you saw them?"

Harry talked about his encounter with them which Hermione confirmed. When they discussed the change with the other rouges, the only one with a decent suggestion was Osfrid.

"I'm assuming that the forest you're both walking in has something to do with you and if that's the case, perhaps the lack of animals in the forest is what made you both influence Draco and Ron into becoming animals you associate either of them with."

That made sense. Kind of.

"Why couldn't Ron be scared of a cat or something."

"Do you want to see a cat the size of a tiger with Ron's head on it? I don't think that would be much better." Hermione admonished. "For the first time in my life I feel afraid of ferrets." She said as she shivered. "I can't believe he broke me in half..."

With another dose out of the way, Harry and Hermione each parted ways for a while to see about getting their wedding clothes fitted.

The vampires seemed to be going all-out with the couple in making sure they were dressed like royalty when getting married. Harry had been gifted with a suit of armour that was as black as night and charmed to be lightweight which Harry quite liked and decided that looking like a dementor was nice and intimidating, but a suit of armour would help protect him physically. At the very least he wouldn't have to worry about his sword going through his leg anymore.

Hermione on the other hand was gifted with a far less practical dress. She had originally protested at getting married in a pitch black dress and drew the line the second she saw them coming for her with dark gothic style makeup and so the vamps resigned to giving her blood-red lipstick instead. It was an incredibly old-style dress with a corset and hoop. The veil came with a silver crown that completely contrasted with the old style dress.

In between doses, the Barons Black utilized their time negotiating between the vampires and the werewolves what they wanted once Harry overthrew the two old farts currently running the place.

Harry would not allow the Vampires to hunt Humans, but agreed that criminals were fair game. If a lack of criminals became a problem, they would see about human sacrifices when that occurred.

It was at Harry's suggestion they decided to create the impression that being chosen to be either a werewolf or a vampire was a privilege, not a curse, but creating this impression would mean that the vampires would need to reign in their troublesome vampires.

He let them decide how they were going to go about it.

There was a problem with that system for the werewolves however as a werewolf did not naturally have control over their actions when transformed. It was very important therefore that wolfsbane be provided by the government for them as a normal living expense and that any turnings of either race be monitored for the sake of knowing how much money was being spent.

These talks moved the conversation out of Harry's comfort zone. It was McGonagall, Remus and Hermione that ensured they documented all decisions and while Harry listened in and often gave some invaluable suggestions at the meetings, a lot of it seemed to go over his head.

He had a lot to learn, but the fact was that even in his current state, Harry would have run the country better than Voldemort currently was.

Hermione continued moving forwards with her left hand running against the wall. There was no getting tired in this world. It was painful dying, but only until they woke up and then it didn't seem like they ached or anything. It was just like waking from a dream.

She sighed and wished she could hear birds chirping or something to displace the monotony of it all and while a miracle didn't happen to make birds appear, the monotony removed itself from her presence when she noticed the scenery change slightly. Trees were ruined and growing unusually, many had glowing chunks taken out of them and the floor glowed almost radioactively.

Hermione pressed on and a moment later, she saw in the wall a large hole, taller than she was and only just within her reach.

It shimmered as she stared at it and Hermione tried to touch whatever it was, only to realise that there was something invisible blocking it. Whatever it was it was something soft.

The phenomenon reminded her of something, but she wasn't sure what.

She theorised that the unusual transformation in the vegetation around the glow was due to a leakage at some point from the hole.

After looking around the area for a length of time, she decided to speak to Harry about it when she saw him next which to her eternal relief actually happened that very same dose.

She looked up in surprise to see an ethereal man walking towards her with a large grin on his face. "Hermione!" His hollow voice echoed as he ran towards her.

"You found the other one!" He cried happily. "I saw one just like this about a kilometre behind me."

When he moved closer to her he looked rather shocked. "Hermione, you're see-through."

"I'm not see-through," She retorted. "You're the one who's see-through!"

They each looked at their limbs, each convinced that they were completely opaque and yet even when they tried to embrace, they stepped right through each other.

Harry could feel her arms in his lung and it made it hard to breathe. They both very quickly stepped away from each other.

It was a puzzling moment for them both which made them worry a touch if they'd be able to truly appreciate each other's company, but as Harry mused, perhaps it was for the better, Hermione's naked body made his body do things which normally he would have liked to have hidden from her.

She just looked at him in amusement making him even more embarrassed, so he diverted her attention as quickly as he was able back to the holes in the wall.

"You know what it is, don't you?" Harry asked her with a grin.

"It seems familiar," She replied, not taking her eyes off him. "I've seen this kind of damage before."

"I'm sure that these holes are fountains of magic." He suggested. "The force holding them closed is us."

Hermione's head snapped up to look at his face, then back at the wall in wonder.

"I appeared right near one and I've been thinking about it all this time. It looks just like the shrieking shack doesn't it?" He asked.

"So, this forest, this is our mind?"

"It would make sense wouldn't it? Draco and Ron are here because we're each drinking a potion that contains them both. They get stronger with every dose."

"So have you found anybody else's taps?"

Harry shook his head in response. He hadn't seen anything on the wall except the two holes.

They spent their time puzzling out the mystery until the inevitable time of Draco's appearance to kill them off. It didn't matter though; they were together at last in their mind-world. So they both accepted death graciously.

"England is completely cut off from official information. Companies relying on government subsidiary are falling; even the phone and electric companies there are finding it difficult to provide uninterrupted service!"

"Three countries not part of the United Nations have taken it upon themselves to send special force teams to attempt to remove the threat from England."

A murmur ran through the United Nations.

The removal of the Queen and subsequent economic failure of the country had hit the world hard. England may not have been the richest country in the world, but it was a critical player in the events of the world and businesses worldwide relying on imports and exports from Britain found themselves in the deep end looking for alternatives which were either more expensive or simply not available anywhere else.

Rumours of members of the new members of government there said that they killed subjects for fun and did little to actually run the country other than to command the military into fighting with factions unknown within the country.

Reports had shown that many people were trying to ignore the change in government as best they could but with harbours being systematically destroyed and airports being forcefully shut down it was inevitable that the subjects of Britain were in for a difficult time.

Countries such as Australia and Canada which while autonomous were technically both under the control of Britain sought to cut the link politically and become independent in their own right while still offering support to return the country to a more realistic government than the current one.

The task of the UN however was to create an endorsed special strike team with the best the member countries had to offer to take into custody, or if that was not possible, take out, the one called Voldemort.

"All of these assassination attempts have failed."

People talked of the members of the new government waving sticks around and doing things that could not be explained using conventional science. Certain members of the UN knew exactly who and what Voldemort was, but each country had their own relations with their magical community and they were not talked about in the UN.

The people who knew about Voldemort only pushed harder for his removal.

Harry stepped to the front of the hall. It would soon be filled with vampires and werewolves alike to witness Harry's wedding to Hermione. In a few hours they would take their last dose of potion and Harry would have a different kind of responsibility to look after.

Since they had met up at the wall, Harry and Hermione noticed each other becoming more opaque and it was nearing impossible for either of them to pass through each other, though they were not yet solid enough to interact fully with each other.

They had taken a stand against the two spirits, having decided that they were an obstacle to overcome. Perhaps it was a dangerous assumption to make as nobody knew what would happen after the last dose but they were getting sick of being preyed upon and used branches to make some wooden weapons which didn't help much.

The previous visit they had managed to influence their bodies in the real world to relax the pressure they held on the magic allowing a puddle of raw magic to flow onto the floor. Their makeshift weapons had been covered in the raw magic and turned to solid gold which was a surprise and in their last battle, Ron had lost three legs and one of his fangs while Draco had numerous cuts but Hermione was anything but skilled with weapons as she'd always told Harry they were rather pointless. Now she regretted it.

But after today, they would see about the final challenge.

"Is everything properly prepared?" Harry asked the priest member Linn.

"Everything will go perfectly I'm sure." He replied.

Humanoids started moving towards forwards and they all stood in aisles. There were no seats present in the hall and Harry suspected those standing up the back were simply there so that they could say they'd been there.

The young man shifted on his feet nervously, his armour rattling as he moved. He watched as movement slowed and Remus hurried up to him, Minerva, Luna and Cynwise in tow; each looking extravagant in their far more vibrant clothes, even if they were all grey. Probably the most interesting thing Harry noted was that Cynwise was wearing a bonnet that swayed unnaturally on her head.

"You got the rings?" Harry asked Remus.

"Of course."

At first glance, it seemed like a perfectly muggle traditional wedding. The first difference to notice apart from the dress of everyone present was that there was no organ music and Hermione, together with Knight as acting father of the bride strode down the aisle.

The bride jingled with step as bells attached to her dress rang in an unusual melody, each step toward the dais seemed to make the sound grow in volume.

Despite the morbid appearance of the black gown she was wearing, Harry's breath was taken away from him. His own suit which had a regal feel to it seemed to be eclipsed by the magnificent beauty of the dress which radiated a command of respect for anybody that stepped past.

As she took placed her foot on the first step the Dark Lord Harry swore he could hear a choir singing which built up into a magnificent full sound until she placed her first foot on the platform level with Harry and the sound just died out. The bells on her dress made no further noise after that.

Harry smiled at her and wondered if she could even see out of the pitch black veil.

"Mistress." The elder greeted.

Hermione inclined her head without saying a word as the tradition they were following dictated.

"Dark Lord Potter, you may start your declaration of intention."

Harry nodded and aligned himself toward Hermione. "My lady, you and I have been side by side for what feels like forever. More recently we were thrown together as comrades in an invisible war and through that companionship I have found your love and my purpose in life.

"If you will enter an unbreakable bond of marriage with me, I will promise to look after you as only I am able. Your companionship with me shall lead to the downfall of two dark lords who bring anguish to not only you or I, but every living creature directly or indirectly.

"I will expect that if you accept my hand in marriage that you will be my council and my conscious, that you will guide my hand to be a merciful ruler to my followers.

"You will understand that the oath I am about to offer you will tie my soul to yours and that your death will drag my soul with you to the other side. My life will be in your hands as much as my own."

He let out a breath. As he had spoken the words he started to realise the gravity of his words.

"You will understand that as I ascend to a throne that I will build with my own two hands that a ruler must have heirs. It will be your duty to provide for the people and for me. You will raise our children with a fair but stern hand.

"These are my terms of marriage." Harry ended.

"If you accept his terms," Their Master of Ceremony stated quietly. "Step forward."

Hermione stepped closer to Harry.

The priest nodded to Harry. "Then bind your promise to the ring."

Harry gestured to Remus who handed him the one destined for Hermione. Despite the meaning of the wedding, Harry couldn't help but hypothetically wonder what would happen if he accidentally enchanted the wrong ring. He shook those thoughts from his head and double-checked he had the correct ring.

"Redimio meus spondeo." Harry called reverently. The ring glowed gently in his hand as the elder gestured to Hermione.

"Dark Lady Granger, You may now start your declaration of intention."

Hermione shuddered at being called 'Dark Lady Granger'. The formal introductions seemed to be an impromptu addition to the lines specified by the elder.

"My Lord, It has always been us, ever since you sent me that letter with the words 'I remember everything'. You have fought beside me even when the odds were against us and every time we have come out alive. Tonight I will formally ask you to continue to do so.

"If you would enter in that unbreakable bond of marriage with me, you will continue to work through the same goals as I. Your fight against Voldemort will be conducted with me by your side, even if I cannot deal the finishing blow. Our fight with Dumbledore is for us to overcome together.

"Know that I shall be there to help you pick up the pieces when we have won. I do not doubt that we will. You and I together shall rebuild out country from its ruins.

"You shall accept my guidance as your queen and work towards a fair world where all creatures, so called 'dark' or 'light' can live in equality.

"Understand that I bind my life to yours and that your death will mean my own.

"You will comprehend that as we ascend to a throne that rulers must have heirs. It will be your duty to provide for the people and for I. You will teach our children what it means to be loved as I love you."

Hermione had a lump form in her throat.

"These are my terms of marriage."

"If you accept her terms, Step forward."

Harry moved close enough to Hermione they were an arm's length apart.

"Then bind your promise to the ring."

Remus placed the ring in Hermione's hand, and like Harry, chanted the spell "Redimio meus spondeo" to imbue Harry's ring with her 'terms' as she was forced to call them. She hated the idiom, but understood why they were doing it this way.

"Upon placing these rings on your fingers, you are entering into a permanent commitment, not even removing your own finger will break the promises, are you perfectly clear on that?"

"We are." They both acknowledged.

"Then hold the rings in your right hands, and place your ring finger through your other's promise ring."

They each did as instructed, each pushing their respective promise bands onto their fingers where they resized to fit rightly on their fingers enough so that they were too small to take off, but wouldn't cut off circulation to that finger.

"With this act, you may lift her veil and gaze into the face of your wife." Harry did as he was told and when he did so he found Hermione's eyes shimmering tears though her face was set in stone. She was trying to remain strong but right now, she wanted nothing more than to cry tears of happiness.

Harry leaned down slightly and kissed her gently and passionately.

Even after the clapping had died down, the rings continued to glow.

Harry pulled back from her face where she continued to face upwards with her eyes closed as if savouring the feeling. He put his arm around her and turned to face the crowd.

"I have made promises to your leaders. Let it be known that these promises will be kept. When my heir is old enough, their father will wipe the floor with those who would oppress the residents of this country! It belongs to all of us!" Harry called as he urged Hermione forward and together, they walked down the steps, through the door and apparated home.

"Missus Potter." Harry said with a grin.

"If that's who you want me to be, I could get attached to Dark Lady Potter."

Harry grimaced. "Dark Lord Potter made me feel like I should have been trying to kill them all..."

"It's a matter of perspective really. If all it takes to be a dark lord is that you're male, a wizard, have knowledge of Dark magic and have a few followers, then yes Harry, you're a dark lord." She cupped his face and smiled. "But the title means nothing to me. It's Harry that I love my darling."

Harry kissed her tenderly.

A few telltale pops and poofs indicated that their roommates had appeared. "Are you guys going to be alright looking after this place?"

"For all we know Harry, it might be over as soon as it starts."

"If it's going to be anything like when we broke our taps of then it might take days or weeks." Hermione replied on his behalf.

"Love the look Osfrid." Harry said to Cynwise' bonnet.

"Oh har har." The hat grouched as it glared daggers at Minerva. "Any of you magic folk may feel free to put me back to normal whenever you're ready."

Harry flicked his fingers at the Hat and grinned as he swept Hermione off of her feet and marched her towards the bedroom.

"Thank you." The hat replied.

Minerva who had felt rather rebellious when she had turned him into the bonnet let out a rather uncharacteristic giggle.

"What? Oh no... he didn't..." The hat whined.

Cynwise' took what used to be a bonnet off her head and stared at the baseball cap. "I went to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry and all I got was this stupid hat." She read aloud.

"POTTER! THAT'S NOT FUNNY!" The hat screamed.

Harry enjoyed listening to the hat screaming. He felt like the hat was finally getting its comeuppance for its own manipulations.

He placed Hermione down on their bed and couldn't seem to wipe his grin off his face. She rolled towards him smiling.

"Like what you see Mister Potter?"

"Hey, I'm a married man." He said mischievously.

"I know you are. I've got a glowing finger to prove it."

Harry lay down on the bed beside her. "Should we perhaps put up a silencing charm?"

"I thought you'd never ask." Hermione replied. "Though would you be willing to wait a couple of hours perhaps?"

Harry looked up in surprise and feeling a little hurt, or perhaps frustrated. "Why?"

Hermione had a roguish grin of her own. "I was thinking... how would you feel about making love to me in our mind-world?"

Harry blinked. "I suppose I've waited this long." He jutted his lower lip.

"I'll make it worth your while." She told him seductively. "Besides, a silencing charm won't stop them from looking in. At least they wouldn't be able to see us there."

"But Ron and Draco could." Harry argued to which Hermione frowned.

"Don't kill the mood darling."

Harry and Hermione basked in the normality of married life until Minerva kindly reminded them it was time for their last dose.

They gave her their thanks and moved to the training room where the potion was still sitting.

Harry wasn't able to understand why they needed to make a potion that would have served another two courses but some potions were like that.

"If we're asleep for more than twenty minutes, you should banish what's here." Hermione told them.

"Are you sure that's wise?" Remus asked.

"Sixteen doses. That's what the potion called for. Presumably something will happen. You should all be careful as some nasty things happened when Harry and I messed with our magical limits."

"What happened?" McGonagall asked them. "So we know what to look out for."

"Well, the shrieking shack looked very different than when we walked into the place. The walls changed material and I turned the carpet to a soft stone." Hermione reminisced. "There were a lot of holes in the wall, but I'm sure that was the tap breaking. That shouldn't happen this time, but if you see signs of magic leaking from us, we want you to get as far away as possible."

Remus' mouth dropped as a few things fell into place.

"It was you!" Remus yelled. "You were the ones who made me think that the shack was in the Thames with the entrance being in Madam Maxine's office!"

Harry lifted an eyebrow. "You can regale me of stories about rerouting the Channel Tunnel into Madam Maxine's office later. Right now, we have a potion to take."

The potion they took this time was three times larger than the previous doses. Harry was rather concerned he'd fall asleep after getting through only one dose worth, but thankfully he lasted through the whole thing.

Hermione was a touch slower at finishing hers, and they crumpled simultaneously. It was Luna, who suggested they take them to their bedroom.

Harry called out to Hermione and her voice wafted back across the trees. He sighed with relief.

Since they'd found the holes in the wall, they had managed to figure out that the world they were currently in was actually two worlds overlapping each other, and for every dose they had taken, the two holes in the wall moved closer together.

Today, both of the holes sat only a metre apart from each other.

Things felt very different in the forest today however. It felt as if time was on a completely different scale.

Harry picked up the golden sword that lay near the hole from their last battle and Hermione approached him, this time looking completely opaque.

Harry thought she looked kind of like a wood nymph, the way she skipped out from between the trees and immediately embraced him in her arms and kissed him as if she had found a long lost lover.

He was acutely aware of Hermione's breasts squeezed against him and he started to feel a little stiff.

"I've wanted you for so long Harry." She whispered to his ear.

"Me too my darling wife." He replied making her shudder as he kissed her ear and started nipping kisses along her neck while running a hand along her stomach and waist. "I can't believe I waited as long as I have."

Hermione moaned gently and didn't argue as he pushed her backwards onto the moss.

She kissed him back as she wrapped her hands around his manhood and moved back and forth a little; eliciting a guttural noise from Harry.

Harry shifted out of her reach and placed his fingers at her entrance as if testing the water. She moaned more and moved her body as he played with her as they had a few nights beforehand.

He enjoyed listening to her and feeling her move next to him.

Leaning down, he took her breast in his mouth and gently sucked on it.

"That feels wonderful Harry..." She cooed in response. "I want you inside of me my love."

Harry let go of her breast and shifted on top of her where she struggled to position him. Harry had a couple of problems with getting the angle correct, but after a moment was able to slide into her making her squeak with pleasure.

They each awkwardly moved to their own rhythms while kissing each other. Hermione was running her hands across his back and in an instant when Harry did something that caused her a moment of bliss, reached for his buttocks and took control of his movement.

Harry himself had never felt anything quite as exquisite as the pleasure racking his body, but for him the real pleasure was in seeing how his wife responded to him. All he knew was that he didn't want it to end, but it was not to be.

As he and his lover found a rhythm and found a spot that felt nice, they moved faster, and the pleasure mounted until Harry couldn't take it anymore. At that moment, he screamed her name and felt something flow through him and into her before he collapsed on her.

For her however it was just the beginning. Feeling Harry's essence inside of her started a chemical reaction of pleasure for her the likes of which she'd never felt before. As she continued to move against him, she felt Harry's stick soften as he could no longer keep it erect, but this in turn gave her a different kind of pleasure as he contracted disjointedly.

She continued to move against him until he had shrunk so much it slipped out of her.

It was a minor disappointment to her that she never got to feel the heaven that they talked about in her mother's romance novels, but as she learned that time, her husband may seem like superman, but learning to make love effectively would be something they would spend a lot of time learning and experimenting together.

Her turn would come, but it had still felt amazing nevertheless.

Harry had never felt so tired but he became aware that Hermione's breathing had become laboured and pushed himself tiredly off of her, allowing her to breathe easily without the weight of him on top of her lungs.

"I love you Hermione," He told her tiredly. "That was wonderful."

"I love you too." She replied happily as she pushed herself under his arm and snuggled up to him where they both fell asleep.

The rogues all stood around the potion blushing. A few moments ago Remus had put a silencing charm on their room and they all promised they would not look, so it was that they decided they needed to do something about the wall opposite the hallway leading to their bedroom as the rock seemed rather bland now that they were noticing it more often.

Osfrid had announced that though the two newlyweds were doing 'that' there was no intelligence to be found in their minds. They were still in the dream world.

Cynwise turned the hat inside out for being a voyeur.

"What is this!? Pick on the hat day!?" Osfrid decided that being defenceless was not a good thing against a vampire whom he could not influence at all.

"Well, they've been out of it a while, we should get rid of this potion." Knight said.

"Right." Remus agreed and with a wave of his wand and a spoken "Evanesco!" They were left with a spotless golden cauldron.

With two eggs in the bottom of it.

Six heads and a hat peered into the cauldron in curiosity.

"Are they supposed to be there?" McGongall asked them.

"No." Remus replied.

"What are they?" Luna asked. "Are these perhaps the eggs of a brain-infesting-thugger?"

"I doubt it..." Cynwise replied. "Those are green."

They pondered for a moment until Knight declared that Remus should do some research, working backwards.

Remus protested that he didn't know enough about potions to figure out what went wrong. Hermione would, but she was in a coma.

The fact was though that someone had made a grave mistake and Remus spent seven days trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

During that time, Minerva did her reading, Cynwise and Luna were going over vampire ethics over a tea party. Luna's chair was far too small and the teddy bears looked at the adults as they walked past as if to say "Please! Take us away from this torture!" But they were incapable of speech, so their plight went unnoticed.

Knight, Fenrir and Wormtail were making Voldemort's life hard by sabotaging his efforts with the help of Pettigrew's secret stash of Polyjuice. Getting Lucius Malfoy's hair was easy as he was losing it steadily enough. After that it was a simple matter of approaching the Military general and ordering him to attack a known gathering point for Death Eaters warning him that the opposition were trying to infiltrate them.

Last they heard, Lucius was licking his wounds for being senile.

Peter had gotten wind of Voldemort's need to create an immaculate conception spell. Telling this to the rogues caused riotous laughter amongst them where they decided to start posting notices around London and Diagon Alley asking people if they should be following a king who couldn't get it up.

While the werewolves didn't exactly like Peter much and made that very clear, knight made a concerted effort to make sure that he was given opportunities to redeem himself in their eyes and Peter seemed to be milking these opportunities for all they were worth.

Finally, when Remus caught them all together and asked who had added the phoenix ash, Cynwise ducked under the table.

"Did you think to perhaps remove the phoenix from the ashes?" He asked her icily.

"It bit me!" She protested. "So I drowned it!"

"You drowned Fawkes in the potion?" Minerva asked horrified. "You can't just drown an animal because it bit you young lady!"

"Don't call me young! I'm older than you are!"

Minerva refused to rise to the bait.

"Have you been able to figure out what effect this would have on them Remus?"

Remus shook his head. "There are too many variables. Phoenixes are typically very magic resistant so I'm hoping the impact would be negligible, but it's just too hard to tell as there isn't much known about them and I've found nothing to suggest anybody has ever managed to get one in a potion where it didn't escape from."

"So what are these things in the cauldron then?"

"My best guess is that those are phoenix eggs."

The hypothesis was met with surprise, who had ever head of a phoenix egg.

"All we can really do is wait and see if Harry and Hermione ever wake up." Knight said.

"Has anybody checked to make sure they're even still alive?" Fenrir asked.

Knight coughed. "Um, yes. They're definitely still alive, or at least, the bodies are."

Harry and Hermione spent a lot of time exploring each other, but there was still an uneasiness that accompanied the fact that the mind world around them had changed, and was still changing.

They experienced their first night-time in the place, which was odd given there was no sun in the place in the first instance. There was a breeze and the place just suddenly seemed so much more alive than before.

Despite the changes to the world around them, they still never seemed to feel hungry, though there were moments that Harry really wanted to get some taste in his mouth like pumpkin juice or something.

The uneasiness however came from the general lack of Ron and Draco. It never took those two very long to find them the previous times. It was as though they had just waited for them the last time.

Harry had attempted to teach Hermione how to use a sword, but she just didn't seem to have an aptitude for it. The problem was that Hermione didn't have strong enough arms to pick up a weapon made of solid gold.

After deciding that it was a waste of time even trying, they instead tried messing with the flow of magic from the holes though that turned out to be beyond them also. They knew from previous experience that while they were in this world, the magic was literally corrosive to them.

So without being able to shape the magic, it was just a pool of uncontrolled and unpredictable magic. Completely useless to them.

Twelve nights passed in the dream world when the two of them were awoken by a rumbling.

"What is that?" Hermione asked with a worried look etched on her face.

"Don't know... sounds like giants..." Harry replied getting to his feet and reaching for his sword.

"Here?"

Harry rubbed the sleep from his eyes and climbed a tree. "Holy shit!" He cried. "It's giants alright! Ron and Draco are headed this way!

"You've got to hide!" He cried to her as he dropped to the ground.

"I will do no such thing!" She replied hotly.

"Listen to me Hermione, you can't fight this without magic." He pleaded. "I just have this feeling... We can't die this time."

"I know, I feel scared to die this time too. But I can't let you fight them alone!"

"HERE YOU ARE!" Ron's voice boomed as a Spider as large as a tree battered through the forest.

"We've been waiting for you!" Draco said, crashing through himself to stand beside him. "We're going to kill you once and for all, then we should be able to escape this place."

"Hermione, stay back." Harry pleaded as he pushed her towards the wall while keeping his sword trained on them both.

"You're still using that thing?" Ron asked. "Sticks and Stones may break my bones-"

"-But my sword will not fail me!" Harry cried as he charged towards Ron and swung at his face and rolling out of the way to avoid the pincers.

Draco reached down to pick Hermione up, but she dodged out of the way. Being a giant now his movements were a lot slower which made things easier for Hermione to dodge.

Harry reached upwards with his sword and poked it through Ron's thorax and started running with it, causing blood to spill on top of him, but as he turned back to make sure that Ron was dead, he could see the wound closing up and though Ron roared in pain, he soon stopped and turned to face Harry who, for a brief second had doubt in his mind as to whether or not he could win.

Ron charged towards him and Harry swung his sword, cleanly cutting off one of Ron's pincers and ducking under the other one. He reached to his left with the sword and amputated one of Ron's legs again. Unlike the wound his body had sustained, his leg did not grow back.

Harry grinned. He was going to take out as many legs as he needed to stop him from moving around.

"Come here Little Bitch!" Draco called as he reached once more for her.

Hermione ducked out of the way and was swatted rather forcefully with Draco's tail. Where she was knocked to the floor, stunned long enough for Draco to pick her up and start squeezing her.

She screamed in pain causing Harry to look up at where she was.

He immediately stopped battling Ron and ran to her aid where Draco was grinning manically as he squeezed.

He wasn't grinning anymore when Harry sliced up his Achilles tendon causing him to lose balance and his grip on Hermione.

When Ron careened into him, chasing after Harry, Draco flew to the ground, letting go of Hermione who rolled to the ground and though in pain, pushed herself off the ground as quickly as she could. Draco had narrowly missing Harry who had dodged and cut off another of Ron's legs who was down to five and was finding it rather difficult to move effectively.

With a swish, Harry removed the fourth leg and Ron went face first into the ground, where he was dragging himself in circles.

With his right ankle no longer usable, Draco resorted to crawling on his three legs, but having a body that was designed for such movement made sure that having only three legs was only a minor handicap.

He turned further on Hermione and bared his ferret-like teeth at her.

Hermione backed against the wall and prayed to herself, "Please! Work magic!" She aimed both hands outwards and screamed "Reducto!"

Nothing happened, but Draco stopped and stared at her.

Hermione watched him for a moment and wondered what had happened, when she chanced to look down and noticed that her stomach had a light nimbus around it.

A bolt of lightning shot from Hermione's body, through the ferret causing it to shake uncontrollably and hit Harry who sidestepped Ron who was charging at him and sliced off his other fang.

Harry stared at the bolt that didn't hurt, he couldn't feel it at all, but he could see between him and Hermione that a glow had developed around both of them, and a moment after that, the ground started shaking much worse than before.

All four of them stopped fighting and struggled to stay afoot as the lightning bolt between Harry and Hermione suddenly shot out from the middle of them and shot into the wall above them causing debris to fall around them.

Harry got to his feet and ran to Ron, stumbling as he ran and shoved his sword through Ron's neck and lifted upwards, almost severing his head from his body which was held there by little more than skin and muscle.

Harry stepped back and watched Ron gargle blood before approaching once more and thrusting his sword through his temple.

Ron's eight eyes rolled back into their sockets and his legs curled inwards.

At the same Time, Draco bared his fangs at Hermione and dashed towards her faster than she had thought him possible.

Harry stared open eyed as Draco jumped towards her and noticing a shimmer towards where he was jumping, closed his eyes and demanded with all his might that he let go of the plug that held the magic within the wall.

It answered his call and a full flood of magic shot out of the wall and blasted a hole through Draco's lower jaw and body.

Harry ran to Hermione, struggling to stay upright as the land continued to rumble. Draco's body landed long before he got there and it bubbled as the magical liquid caused it to change composition and made his lungs grow arms and heads. It stopped twitching a few moments later as it slowly turned to stone.

Harry pulled Hermione into his arms.

"Are you alright?"

"I- I'm alright." She said, placing her hands on her abdomen. "The... The baby and I are fine."

"I'm so glad." He said pulling her close. "The baby?" He asked.

Hermione went wide eyed as she stared behind her. "Harry!"

Draco's head had detached itself from what was left of the body and floated directly at them. Harry shoved Hermione away from him roughly, gripped his sword and swung around three hundred and sixty degrees, cleaving Draco's head clean in half horizontally.

Harry panted and collapsed to the ground.

"Harry!"

A large crack formed in the ground between him and his wife that ran all the way up the wall and as quickly as it appeared, the earth split open between them and pulled them both apart.

The two souls that were holding Harry's vision of this world to Hermione's vision were dead and the link that bound it all together snapped like a rubber band holding up a ton weight, and along with it, the wall broke in twain, spilling forth magic with no control.

Harry reached for Hermione but she was already out of his reach. "HERMIONE!" He screamed at her as she called his name back to him.

Then they couldn't even see each other for the flood of magic that spewed from the wall down the crevice between them and without further notice, the wall started to crack the entire length of it and Harry stared in morbid amazement as the wall exploded towards him, overflowing with magic like an avalanche.

He threw his arms up and to his amazement, a shield enveloped him and protected him from the raw magic that crashed down upon him and threw him about like a raging storm.

His shield bubble floated to the top of the magic and burst through the surface bouncing into the air.

Harry fell to his knees as he looked around. The forest was gone. All he could see around him was the shimmer of magic in all directions. He looked around for Hermione and called her name out into the void.

There was no response.

He screamed her name over and over again until he completely lost his voice from trying, upon which he fell to his knees and sobbed.

He never heard the flutter of wings or the scrape of talons as a bird landed atop his bubble.

"You caused this." A deep baritone rang through his mind. "Why?"

Harry's head shot upwards and looked at the pitch black bird that seemed to absorb all light.

Harry opened his mouth to say, "I wanted to protect the one I love," and though no voice escaped his throat, the bird still nodded in understanding.

"It would seem you have been granted that power." The bird said almost sadly. "The magic here feels unnatural in itself as if it were being generated artificially. What have you done?"

It never occurred to Harry not to tell the truth in front of this bird. "I don't know the details, but this is indirectly the result of my love for Hermione."

"That might explain the artificial feeling of it. I do not know how it is you are managing to convert love into magic."

Harry nodded as he looked around the desolate seas of magic. "Do you know if she is alright?"

"The other half of me is with her at the moment. She weeps for you as well and fears that you did not survive and that she will have to raise your child without you."

'That's right...' Harry thought to himself. 'She knew that she was pregnant. I almost forgot.'

"I don't want to leave her. I want to raise that child too."

"Then you should leave this barren place and return to where you came from."

"I don't know how." Harry replied.

"I shall take you then." The bird dug it's claws into the bubble and took flight, effortlessly carrying the bubble up into the skies. It flew higher and higher until Harry became light-headed and passed out.

Remus, Knight, Cynwise, Luna and McGonagall all sat around the table feeling rather sorry for themselves.

Harry and Hermione had been in their bed for days on end. The only sign that they were still alive was when they would climb on top of each other which they hadn't done in two whole days. Other than that, they seemed completely dead to the world.

It left them everyone thinking that their minds had been destroyed and they only lived instinctually.

Dobby had been feeding them whenever he could, though it usually consisted of liquids as they wouldn't move their mouths to eat properly. It worried the elf ever so much.

A rumble sounded through the mountain and dust landed atop of their heads. All lights in the main cave cut out.

Screams could be heard from outside where all the werewolves on the mountain were running out of their homes.

"Lumos!" McGonagall called, but her wand refused to light. "Oh dear... my magic isn't working... Is it Death Eaters?"

"Let's head outside." Remus said urgently.

"I can't! It's daytime!" Luna protested.

"Then you should head somewhere, anywhere but in here!"

"Remus, grab Harry. I'll get Hermione." Knight said simply as they both groped their way to the bedroom.

"Let's go girls." Minerva said to their vampires.

She tried to apparate away, tunnelling herself outside, only to be struck rather painfully by a barrier and landing back right where she started. She yelped in surprise and wiped a bit of sweat from her head. If her reaction had been any worse, she would have been splinched.

Cynwise and Luna looked at each other; they had much better eyes in the dark than the transfiguration teacher had. Cynwise attempted to move to their vampire home in Romania, but found that she couldn't gather enough smoke to achieve it.

"We can't leave that way!" She said desperately.

"I'm going to get the emergency portkey I keep." Minerva said. "Get Osfrid."

McGonagall turned into a cat to allow her better sight in the dark and skittered to her dorm where she kept it.

If he weren't panicked, Knight would have blushed as he reached for Hermione, but thoughts of her being naked never occurred to his mind as the cave's rumbling increased and suddenly the room lit up as a flood of liquid magic exploded from their bodies, flooding the entire cave.

As the liquid touched anything not sentient, it would glow and started changing in nature.

In just a couple of seconds, everybody in the cave was up to their knees in magic.

Knight tried to reach Hermione, but the flow of magic coming from his body was far too strong for him to go against, and as the magic ran further up his body, he felt something manipulating his thoughts, making him relive the moments that his wife and daughter were killed, and then, something within himself changed.

Minerva hated water. It was a phobia that came with her animagus form and she fought the feeling every time she had a shower, but it was always worse when she was a cat, and she had returned to her human form the instant she saw the magic.

She had reached for her portkey and in her panic, she tried activating it, only to have it explode in her hand, tearing her hand from her arm.

She screamed in pain, but as the pain went over her arm, the pain miraculously stopped and she too felt something probing her thoughts, triggering her own fear of dying.

It was a feeling that everybody got and they stood in wonder, trying to figure out what had changed, not even aware that in that instance of wonder, the magic was up to their necks.

All it had taken was less than a minute and the volume of magic pouring out of the Barons Black was so much that it exploded out of the air vents they had installed, forming a shimmering fountain in the sky. As soon as it touched the fidelius ward that enveloped the entire mountain, something happened. In the blink of an eye, it was night-time. The trees glowed and the mountain became covered in moss.

The werewolves stood out on the mountain, looking all around them. They had no idea what was happening around them. Those that knew where the blame lie were looking at the rock blocking the entrance to the Baron's cave which glowed brightly.

Peter Pettigrew too stared in wonder of the sight before him. Even in his years of servitude to the Dark Lord, he had never seen anything quite like it. Part of him wanted to morph into a rat and flee from this place, but even he could feel that something significant had happened this night and he wondered if this was how James' son planned on taking down Voldemort and Dumbledore.

If the display was anything to go by, perhaps he might even have a chance after all...

"Excuse me?" The Russian communicator asked. "Mir, repeat."

"I told you! I saw it for myself, a whole mountain went missing. It looks like there is nothing left but a crater. There was a black sphere and then, nothing!"

The commander in charge at that point had wondered over and started listening. "Get me a photo."

When the image finally arrived, they stared in amazement. "Surely the Norse are not developing weapons like that..."

"Do you think it could have been that new king person in England?"

The commander frowned and took wide strides to his office. "I must speak to the Defence Department. Immediately." He told himself.

Inside the cave, everybody was panicking that they were going to drown, flailing their arms in the magic.

Two eggs floated around the entrance where Hermione's finger collection had once been stored. A crack scored across the white egg, followed a moment later by a crack in the black egg.

Hermione's eyes fluttered open first.

She yawned, not even noticing that there was no air to breathe until she looked around and noticed Remus and Knight were floating in the air.

The two eggs exploded, sending glowing shards of egg flying through the liquid to embed itself in the grass walls. Where the eggs had once floated intact were two fledgling birds, one pure white, and one pure black.

Harry opened his eyes feeling more awake than he had ever been in his life and shot up straight, and after that point, the cave was bedlam with confusion.

Without really thinking, Harry called the magic to him and all of the fluid surrounding everyone flowed back into his body. Thumps could be heard as the bodies fell to something more solid.

The artificial lighting in the cave returned to normal.

Hermione looked to Harry, relief filling her eyes. "Harry! Thank Merlin you're alright! When the flood came I thought I'd lost you!"

"No, a bird helped me out." He replied, looking into her eyes. "I'm glad you're alright too."

He reached for what used to be his robes that were once laid out nicely on what used to be Hermione's bed, but had since been floating around in magic. As he picked them up and realised that they were no longer made of fabric but instead a metal which flowed like cotton. Seeing the change in his clothing, he looked around and noticed that all the walls had changed, the bed, their wardrobe even their clothes were nothing like they had been in the past.

"Is that Remus and Knight?" Hermione asked staring at the ceiling, which admittedly wasn't very high, but if the walls had been the same they might not have noticed the two grown men splayed haphazardly across the roof.

Harry pulled the material over his sleaves. "I wonder how they got there..."

He became aware of a bit of a racket coming from outside of their room and moved to the corridor linking their bedroom to the rest of the cave. "Do you want to see about getting them down?" Harry asked as he moved to find out what was causing the commotion.

In the front area, he found the two birds in the front of the cave. Harry couldn't help but think that the black bird seemed rather familiar. "Poor thing." He mumbled to himself as he picked them both up and went to show Hermione who he had heard was calling out just about every spell she knew to detach them from the ceiling to no avail.

"No go?" He asked.

"I don't know what's going on with them..."

"Hold these." Harry handed the two birds to Hermione who looked rather startled at them. He stepped onto their bed and grabbed Remus' leg and tugged. It wasn't stuck, and when he let go, the leg thudded back to the roof.

"Looks like the gravity has inverted or something..." He mumbled.

"Well, they should be alright if we leave them." Hermione told him.

"Won't the blood rush to their head when they wake up?"

"I don't think so." Hermione replied. "Their hair isn't falling down so for them, it's natural like this. But what about these?" She held the birds out to him. "Where did they come from?"

"I'm not sure, but I think I saw the black one in my dreamworld."

"Now that you mention it, there was a white bird just before I returned here."

"It said that it's other half was watching over you."

Hermione giggled. "So you two are married?" She stroked the ugly bird's head and it crooned in response.

"Anyway, I'm sure that neither Remus nor Knight wishes to spend their day sleeping." Harry grinned. "Ennervate." Nothing happened.

Harry sighed. It felt like every time they messed with their magic they had to re-teach themselves how to use their magic in the first place.

So Harry imagined the source of his magic, finding the ocean of magic before him, and pulled a strand of magic from it, shaped it as needed and tried once more. "Ennervate."

Both of them got up as if they'd never been asleep in the first place. Harry grinned.

"Harry? Hermione?" Remus asked. "You both look rather... colourful... and what are you both doing on the roof?"

"If you hadn't noticed, the beds are on our side." Hermione replied, rather bemused. "You're the ones upside down."

The revelation made both Knight and Remus cringe and raise their arms to protect their heads as if just knowing they were upside down was going to make them fall. Harry and Hermione both stifled laughs at their reaction.

"Where are the others?"

"Hopefully they got out." Knight replied and started walking across the roof to the study.

"Are you both alright?"

"We're fine, honestly."

"Never felt better."

While Harry and Hermione didn't have a problem accessing the room, both Knight and Remus were given pause by the steep three metre drop between the corridor and the training room, of which the study ran off of.

So as the two grown men negated the obstacle, Harry and Hermione continued on to the study.

The room was a complete mess, books everywhere. Even worse was the pink dragon snorting flames that licked at books which were spitting back at the flames, trying to hold them at bay.

Harry held out his arm protectively in front of Hermione. He couldn't believe his eyes. By far, the dragon wasn't fully grown or as large as a Hungarian Horntail, but it still filled all the available space in the room.

Beside the dragon was a young woman in black. She looked very pale and there was something familiar about her.

Harry edged around the dragon and awoke the sleeping woman, keeping his hand trained on her.

Her head shot up and she looked right at him. "Master! You're alright!"

As she spoke, Harry saw unmistakably the elongated canine teeth. "C-Cynwise?"

Hermione's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "Cynwise?"

"Yes?"

"You- You're all grown up..."

Suddenly, Harry started to understand what was going on and started chuckling to himself. He woke up the dragon beside him.

"Come on Luna you sleepy bones, the books are all singed."

"Harry? You shrunk."

Remus and Knight entered the cave and jumped with fright.

"Was it just you four in the cave?" Hermione asked them. The rouges all shook their heads.

"Minerva was here too." Knight said with a look of concern on his face.

"She went to get her emergency portkey." Cynwise told them.

Harry delegated the job of finding her to Remus and Knight while Hermione and He cleaned up the books.

Ever since he had woken up, everything was on its head. Well, Remus and Knight were, but having them as a point of reference didn't make anything clearer.

Harry and Hermione had returned from the dream world, and their home had become completely foreign to them.

The chairs no longer liked to be sat on. Those living in the residence typically had to summon the chairs and stun them so they wouldn't move about.

The books had become difficult to read. The majority of the books had developed personalities that depicted what they contained. It was not uncommon for they to strike up a conversation with whoever was reading it and they soon found that nobody knew a book's content better than that book.

Whenever there was something they needed to know it was typically faster to just ask the books which of them knew about something.

Still, books that covered knowledge of everything such as encyclopaedias or Hermione's beloved copy of Hogwarts: A History allowed themselves to become sidetracked with other unrelated information rather easily.

With their help, they managed to find a spell to invert the gravity on Knight and Remus because everyone that was on the real floor were getting awfully sore necks when speaking to them.

Everybody that was in the cave that day had changed. They had originally though it had just been Cynwise and Luna, but it became apparent rather quickly upon closer inspection.

Minerva had become younger, in her early thirties and her animagus form had changed from a cat to a tiger. She had found a strength inside herself that made her feel more sure and assertive in the cave.

Knight seemed to have changed the least. He had developed a much more defined body and certainly appeared younger, but with him it was hard to tell.

Remus had completely lost his scars and seemingly little more, but he just knew that something had changed the beast within him. The once-defence professor wasn't sure if he was afraid of the next full moon or whether he was actively looking forward to it.

Cynwise of course had obvious changes. Having grown up in a matter of seconds and regained her teeth, she struggled now to come to terms with the fact that her body no longer seemed to produce the hormones that kept her acting so childishly for the last thousand years. Her brain was having a hard time adjusting and so she still acted rather stupidly at times.

Luna was now a young pink dragon.

Harry sighed as he leaned back in his chair. A young pink dragon that still obeyed every command Cynwise gave it. Worse still was that Luna had a new set of instincts that told her to horde everything that glittered like a magpie.

And then there was Osfrid and Dobby.

Nobody had thought to even check on either of them, but Dobby just appeared rather happily to deliver lunch. He was now twice the height he previously was and had six arms which he insisted was perfect for cleaning and cooking.

If anybody thought that Dobby looked strange, they hadn't set their eyes on the Sorting Hat of Hogwarts which now sported monster truck wheels and a set of crab claws.

Yet, despite the changes in everyone, nobody complained at all about the changes to themselves; not to say they were all pleased with each other's changes. Luna was rather quickly moved into a cave of her own as she was simply too big to keep in the main cave.

It broke her heart that she couldn't stay in the glittery cave with all her jewellery she had stolen from the rouges while they hadn't been looking.

Harry was glad that it hadn't taken much to master the new method at getting to his magic, but he found that he had to be very careful with how much he drew. A slightly overpowered cutting spell had created a tunnel from one side of the cave to the other.

It had become very difficult for Harry to do spell-work using small levels. It was impossible for him to use Lumos without causing blindness, even at his lowest strands of magic. He had become thankful that Hermione had anticipated the problem and researched a spell for curing a burnt-out retina.

Apparating had become a minor issue as well as his arrivals were typically punctuated by large chunks of the ground being displaced and his enervate spells had kept their recipients up for four days straight without sleep. Because of this, Harry found himself so frustrated that he had to stop himself from using spells simply because he couldn't control them and instead found himself reluctantly relying on Hermione and the others to do his minor spell-work.

On the upside, his incredibly boost in magic had given him enough power to use legilimency and mind-control magic on even the Sorting Hat and in his spare time had the hat driving around the mountain range like a remote control car. Osfrid threatened to leave their home if he didn't stop, but secretly he enjoyed it.

Between the newlyweds, they were very happy that Hermione still had their baby growing inside of her.

Hermione's initial thought was that it had been conceived in the dream world and she had been under the impression it had been an immaculate conception.

The new and improved McGonagall had rather shortly informed her that it had been anything but immaculate; her stern mannerisms had not improved with age, or lack there of.

The only thing that Harry and Hermione did not like about the changes was that apparently, everyone who saw them could see their auras which, they soon figured out, changed colours with the emotions either of them were showing at the time.

The auras they were showing were on display to anybody and everybody unlike the auras McGonagall and Knight (the only two rogues capable of seeing auras) had ever seen in the past and because there was no hole to plug up, invisibility was no longer an option for either of them.

Worse yet was the fact that the Barons were completely unable to see each other's auras which gave the others a distinct advantage over Harry where Hermione's volatile emotions being broadcast told them just how to behave around her.

Despite the fact that Dobby had often insisted that they come to him for anything culinary or household maintenance related, Hermione often force Harry to cater to her every whim. He didn't particularly mind except for when she sent him on errands to get her three slices of bacon and pineapple pizza soaked in a bowl of milk at 3 in the morning.

Harry had watched her in morbid fascination eat something that he would never have considered normal. When he asked if she enjoyed the taste of the concoction she had glowered at him and replied quite calmly that it was what the baby wanted.

Harry seriously hoped that the baby learned to like more normal things after it was born.

Their lives had changed quite profoundly since the potion, and while Hermione protested against the idea, Harry had started participating in the raids that the werewolves and the rogues were commonly partaking in while simultaneously banning her from anything more than planning them.

With Harry helping them out, they had started hitting a lot more critical elements of Voldemort's new empire and military buildings had a habit of suddenly going missing altogether.

The Barons Black had an unspoken agreement that neither of them was going to attack Voldemort or Dumbledore until their baby was five.

It didn't take long for them to break that agreement however when two weeks before the new school year was about to start, Knight pulled Harry aside when he thought Hermione wasn't at home and handed him a newspaper clipping from the Daily Prophet.

Harry stared at it. The picture didn't mean much to him, but after reading the contents of it the clipping found itself scrunched up and his aura flared a deep black.

"We can't let her find out about this." Harry said. "There's no way I'll let her find out about this."

"Who find out about what?" Hermione said with a raised eyebrow from just behind him.

Harry jumped and turned around, thrusting the paper behind his back.

"Harry." She said in a deathly calm voice. "I know that face of yours. It's the same one you give me when you've snuck out for one of those expeditions of yours."

She wordlessly summoned the article.

Harry wanted the paper to combust in her hands, but couldn't bring himself to do it.

Hermione unfolded the paper and stared at the picture. "I-Impossible. He couldn't have... You mean he didn't...?"

"A few months ago, I did an audit of the dementors. It turned out that the ministry had none to administer the kiss. The paperwork was forged." Knight explained.

"You knew." She remarked dangerously, her aura going a murky grey.

"I had an idea, but there was still a chance they'd been killed some other way. So I didn't want to tell you until I had some solid proof they were still alive." Knight said quickly.

"Yet now you have solid proof and you gave it to Harry instead of me!"

Knight looked ashamed, but it was Harry who stood between them.

"You're expecting." Harry said simply. "You can't go and get them. Dumbledore will have a very close eye on them. Besides, I'm almost positive this is a tactic to draw us out."

"Who are you to tell me what I can and can't do Harry!" She screamed at him. "Those are my fucking parents!"

"I'll bring them back."

"I'm going."

"You're not." Harry insisted. "Even if I have to restrain you myself."

"He is mine to kill Harry! You get your dark lord, let me have mine!"

Harry held her by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. "Not until the baby is born."

Hermione held her wedding ring in front of him. "See this ring? You made a promise on this ring that you and I would stop Dumbledore together. You cannot stop me."

"Please you two!" Knight pleaded.

"Stay out of this!" They both yelled at him at the same time.

"No." Knight said, watching their auras change to a surprised yellow. "I think you should both do it. Hermione is unlikely to be a liability at this point Harry. The both of you together will ensure your success, but I still think you need to plan this.

"I'm positive that if you show walked in there the way you are, Hogwarts itself would turn against you and you can't exactly apparate in there you know."

Harry looked at Hermione, his worry showing as plain as day. "I really don't want to allow it Hermione. But I don't want to fight with you either."

"I'm going Harry." She said finally.

He sighed in defeat. "Then I won't stop you. We'll rescue them when they've sorted the first-years. That should give us ample time to plan."

His wife sighed with relief. She didn't want to make Harry angry, but he couldn't just keep her caged when her parents were under the control of Dumbledore.

"What I want to know... is how he's justifying having a couple of muggles as a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and a Transfiguration teacher." Knight queried to nobody in particular.

"He's just trying to draw us out before the school term even starts." Harry replied. "It would be rather amusing to see the look on his face if we let them teach for a day or two first." He caught the look on Hermione's face and continued. "But I'll just savour the thought."

"Get a few werewolves on reconnaissance. We'll start planning the attack immediately." Hermione announced.

---

Author's note:

Despite the size of this chapter (A healthy 22,000 words) the delay in getting this one done has not been in writing it but rather proof reading it. There was an awful lot of going back to change things though.

The story is now coming to a closing. I anticipate another 3-4 chapters, defiantely a chapter for Dumbledore, one for Voldemort and an epilogue of some sort a filler between Dumbledore and Voldemort. (Depending on whether I can write enough interesting things in the time between them. I've enjoyed writing this story, but I'm rather looking forward to working on something a bit more free-form rather than a challenge, but it was a nice way to get my foot in the door.

I've had my first few flames relatively recently. Not really flames per se, but people writing to inform me why they stopped reading it and while most seem to say that they might read something else I write in the future, the initial complaints seem to be that the story is too unrealistic and they typically point out flaws that really are inherent to the challenge itself. Not blaming Jayu at all, it was a cool challenge, but that mixed with the more in-depth plot made the challenge hard to stick to.

Personally, I feel like I crossed the line with Harry and Hermione's Auras being different colours when I did the whole 'flooded with magic' bit, but that's another requirement of the challenge for when they meet up with Dumbldore.

I promise you gore lovers lots of splattering over the next couple of chapters. Who's blood? Well, that I'll let you guess. Depends on who Dumbledore could call to his side.

I'd also like to thank everyone who has reviewed my story to date, especially those that do it every chapter. I'm not the type to ask people to review, seeing a positive and/or constructive comment really makes my day. Thanks to you all!

And on one final note before I leave you to peruse the other fics at this site, it might interest you to know that the two omake's that follow weren't really put there because I thought they were amusing, they were actually cut scenes from the story itself. Particularly the first one was actually the opening scene of this chapter when I first wrote it.

--Steven

update

As I said in the beginning notes, this chapter doesn't seem to have been as well recieved as others, mainly in the changes to the characters. The whole point of it is to get Minerva, Remus and Luna more involved in the fighting ahead. When I thought about how to do it, this seemed like a good way to pull it off, but I couldn't exactly have Luna change in some minor way, that's just not how I portrayed her so far. Likewise, you needn't worry, Cynwise is still the same little girl in mind, luna is still a vampire beneath the pink scales and the hat well... that was jus something I always wanted to do to it :P

Having said that, if it really bothers you, continue to let me know and I'll consider rewriting the chapter.

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Omake #5:I am your leader

Petunia Dursley was sitting in front of the TV watching the morning news.

"Last night, the worst thing that has befallen our country in recent times has occurred. A previously unknown threat has emerged and murdered our queen and all of the direct heirs to the throne.

"The bodies of our beloved monarchy and her government were all found in the courtyard in front of Buckingham palace."

Vernon stomped down the stairs and grouched his way to the table. "What's this? I don't think they should be displaying things like that in the morning. How are good people supposed to eat their breakfast with that on the TV screen?" He grumbled as he saw the gruesome image of the royal family on their screen.

"Vernon..."

"Wait, some people are coming out of Buckingham palace."

"Who's that over there?" A robed figure called.

"Isn't that one of those 'Noose' people they talk about?" Another black-robed figure asked.

"Settle down." A man with seemingly no nose called to them. "So, you are the people responsible for informing muggles of what happens?"

"Ummm... that's right..." She replied.

"I have something to tell them all." He said. "How does that work?"

"You... you just speak into the camera."

Voldemort gave her an odd look and put his mouth against the lens. "I am your new King Voldemort."

Someone could be heard snickering, it was impossible to tell who it was.

Vernon frowned. "If this is the news, it's a pretty poor joke."

"What are you laughing about? You've tricked me haven't you?" Voldemort screamed. "Crucio!"

The television's image suddenly became distorted enough that it was hard to make out what was happening.

"Well that looks rather lame." Vernon said. "You'd think for a morning show with the budget they get nowadays they could have better special effects than that. And look at that guy's face, he needs to spend more time in the make-up department."

The camera shook violently and the next thing you could see was a cracked lens.

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Just change the channel Petunia. I would like to watch something more sophisticated."

Petunia glared at him. "Do you know who that was?"

"What, is he some famous actor or something?"

"THAT! Vernon Dursley was the man who killed..." She was breaking down into sobs. "That was the man who murdered my sister!"

"Your sister was murdered by an actor?"

She opened her mouth and shook her head, painfully aware of how stupid her husband was right now. She clenched her fists and slapped Vernon across the face before storming out of the house to go and cry on a friend's shoulder.

Right now, she didn't care what the neighbours thought.

---

Omake #6:Dobby cooks

Once Harry and Hermione had gotten dressed, they stepped out in the hope of getting some food, but all of Dobby's stashes had been turned into cutlery. They now had enough cutlery to feed everybody at both Hogwarts and the Ministry but no food to actually eat.

Dobby did however manage to find some food in the house. A couple of eggs and set to making an omelette.

Imagine his frustration when he cracked the egg on the side of the frying pan and out flopped a featherless bird that started making an awful racket.

"Dobby!" Hermione called out. "What is all that noise?"

"Dobby is sorry Mistress! Lunch is will be late." Dobby called back. "These eggs is not in their date!"

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