Unofficial Portkey Archive

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If anybody dares suggest that I own Harry Potter, I shall feed them to Luna!

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The Void was the name of the mountains that Harry's comrades all called home. Given that when someone had been brave enough to go exploring, they got to an edge that didn't seem to end and a tracking charm on a rock thrown off the side proved that it was still falling, 3 days later.

Apparating to the other edge of the forest, everybody had been surprised to find a huge crater where the mountain used to be that was very slowly filling with magma from the Earth, and water from the rivers that flowed through the region giving a pool of steam from the centre of it all.

So the only access to and from their home was via portkey or apparating. This suited Harry perfectly as it made their home completely untraceable, even if the fidelius wasn't still intact, you couldn't exactly tell someone "Oh yeah, just go find the huge crater in Norway, we're somewhere around there, but not really."

The Void was nowhere, in a place of its own, and to get there, you had to have been brought there once and with the entire place under an anti-apparition ward except for a small room which had identifying charms placed on it, there was no other way of a stranger getting into the place.

Because of that, the once scared werewolves slowly become more relaxed. Living in caves did not appeal to them originally, but as the wizards amongst them placed a few charms around the place, transfigured trees into beds and built baths that could be heated.

The sky was permanently a wavering plasma purple-blue which emitted a soft light that proved to be safe for the resident vampire and her vampire-dragon charge.

Children were very happy to play amongst the trees or on Luna who found no shame in being a jungle gym for them. Occasionally, Hermione and Harry would wonder down to the area just to watch them and try to learn some of the things that a book just could not teach, such as how parents behaved when one child bullied another or they fell over.

Those parents in particular were very eager to offer advice, some wanted, some unwanted and everybody had an opinion on what to do for certain problems like morning sickness which was starting to set in.

When Harry had asked Ben Whittle about how he disciplined his children, Ben was honest. "A belt around the ears keeps them in line. Though, when they were really bad and stole from the neighbour I had them whipped."

That, Harry thought was rather extreme. When he asked Silvia Augustwater about the same problem, she said that she had petrified them for twelve hours without relief or food, them being too young to fight it off, it was rather effective for her children.

Harry asked her what a child should do if the parents did something wrong, she smiled kindly and told him that the child should report the problem to a higher authority. The teenager scoffed. There was no higher authority any more.

Silvia however didn't agree and told her that she expected her children to let the Rogues know if she did something really bad.

Harry paled, but in a way, he didn't mind. Telling himself that he was the Last Dark Lord once more and that people would of course expect him to rule, he could deal with a family dispute until he had an entire country to run. Unfortunately, after that he would have to delegate it to someone else.

Then Silvia asked her lords if they'd seen a midwife.

The couple shared a look and Hermione blushed. The werewolf shook her head in disappointment and immediately dragged both of them to the prison cells where the healers they'd taken from St Mungos were.

Of the six healers they had 'acquired', four of them had subverted to their side after the state of things had been explained to them, especially as word got through that Voldemort had taken control of muggle Britain and declared the Ministry of Magic guerrilla group.

Then he had attacked St. Mungos, killing all patients and abducting any healers who survived. After that, it was possible to release the other two from their prison cell.

When they were all questioned about a midwife, the eldest of the group, Bertha, mentioned that she had been a midwife sixty years ago, but at least for the first few weeks, any of them knew how to check her health.

Hermione had never been afraid of doctors, her parents had taught her that at a very young age, but she was afraid of the idea they might tell her the baby was in bad shape. Nobody could foresee what their ritual would do to the baby.

When she was given the all-clear, she breathed a sigh of relief.

With the nervousness of checking on the baby over with, Harry excused himself to speak with the werewolves.

The biggest problem that the group faced once the decision to attack Hogwarts was made was that the battle of Erskine had made a lot of them too scared to go to fight again.

There were a number of werewolves that would follow Harry to the end of the Earth and back again, but many wanted nothing more than to keep away from any such fighting in the future and while Harry understood this completely, Fenrir was not so forgiving.

For many of them, their reluctance to go to battle made many of them seem like cowards, but his words of vengeance had turned a few more to their cause, but there was the danger of a large rift appearing between the werewolves until Harry himself met with them all as he had once before for a pep-talk.

He hadn't memorised every name in the community, but he knew everyone by face at the very least.

The talk was uncomfortable, but truthful.

"The battle upcoming is as much a personal battle for my wife and I, but it is also going to be a major turning point in the war when Dumbledore bites the dust.

"This battle doesn't concern many of you. Talks of revenge are only useful in our battle against Voldemort, I truly hope that you'll stand with me on that day to avenge your fallen comrades. However our upcoming battle is not your war to fight, and thus, I will not ask you to fight in this battle.

"There are no traps this time, only uncertainties. The werewolves that have sworn fealty to me will be defending our attacking group from the denizens of the forbidden forest, if, and I mean, if, Dumbledore calls for aide from them. They will be fighting centaurs, wood nymphs, water nymphs. There may be a hippogriff or two.

"The rogue vampires in there have been dealt with, there was once a giant there, but from what we can tell that has been moved, if Grawp does show up, you can expect Luna to help you dispatch it.

"Reports so far have shown that there is already a battle waging in that forest between the centaurs and the acromantulas and given the nature of many of the other beasts, Dumbledore would not approach them for help."

He allowed the werewolves time to digest the information given.

"Those participating in the fight will be using wolfsbane that we can trust. Before the full-moon spell is used, you'll be disillusioning each other. You will need to avoid each other by smell. This should help especially against centaurs.

"Anybody that still wishes to stay behind, that is perfectly acceptable. I need guards for any prisoners taken, we need someone to help our medical staff.

"Lastly, anybody with at least one child, I ask that at least one of the parents stay behind."

Harry wasn't sure how his announcement would be received so he waited patiently and when nobody responded, his nervousness built. "That is all."

"Have you an idea how many enemies we'd be facing?" A young man who had taken up smithing asked.

"If all of you were to fight, we'd have just over a two to one advantage." Harry said. "That is what I have heard. But I want to make this exactly clear. If there are too many enemies to fight, I expect each and every one of you to portkey back here and remember, the mission is to defend, long enough for the Baroness to retrieve her parents. After that, you may all leave."

Harry looked around as the murmuring picked up again. "I shall leave you all to discuss this, I would appreciate a response in a few days."

He jumped down from the large tree they'd cut down to act as a platform where a few werewolves spoke to him to clear up his plans and get an accurate picture of what he was asking.

When he'd satisfied their curiosity, he walked back to the cave and found Hermione feeding the two baby birds they seemed to have inherited.

She had an eye dropper and was dipping it into a beaker containing what looked like napalm or something.

He knelt beside her and watched the white bird stretch its neck to get some of the flammable liquid.

She looked briefly at him, worry creased along her face. "Nobody has managed to feed them at all, they just won't eat. The white one is only just now taking stuff from me but the black one won't open its beak at all. I'm quite worried... Maybe it's sick."

"May I try?"

Hermione handed him the beaker.

The white phoenix suddenly shut its gob and the black one reached for the dropper instead.

"Thank Merlin... Somehow, I'm not surprised." She breathed in relief.

Harry scooped up the bird in his hands and put a few more drops of the liquid down the bird's throat.

"Don't let that touch your hands dear." Hermione warned him.

"We've gotta think of some names for these little guys."

"I've already got a name for the white one. Aelred."

"Aelred? What kind of a name is that?" Harry asked, not really liking the sound of it.

Hermione held the bird close to her bosom. "In memory of someone close to Cynwise."

Suddenly the name didn't sound so bad. "Maybe I should ask her for an appropriate name for this little guy. They're like twins."

Hermione looked startled for a moment.

Harry placed his hand on her back and she looked at him with wonder in her eyes. "It spoke! It said its name!"

The black bird screeched and Harry knew it wasn't done feeding.

Hermione petted her bird as Harry resumed to feeding his charge.

"We still need to start coming up with names for our baby." Harry said.

"Have anything in mind?" The mother asked with a pleased smile on her face, glad that he was the one who had brought it up before she did.

"For a boy, I was thinking perhaps Shannon."

"And for a girl?"

Harry shook his head and dripped another few drops down the bird's throat and placed it back in it's box. "I think you've had enough for now."

Again with the awful squawk this time however, Harry got the distinct impression that the bird wanted to go wherever he went.

It wasn't until the next day however before Harry managed to catch up with Cynwise and ask her for a name from the same era as Aelred. She told him she'd think about it later, as she'd promised to go and play on the new swings with the other kids that Andy (one of the werewolves) had made for them.

That was fine with Harry, his tag-along though once more showed its displeasure at being put second-place. Harry started getting annoyed. "You're more demanding than my wife is, you know that?

"Your high maintenance and opinionated, you know that?"

A single word rattled his brain, jumping straight past his mental defences. "ME!"

"Typical that would be your first word to me wouldn't it?" He grouched as he held his head.

Aelred had started tagging around with Hermione, much more placid in personality, it's demands were typically voiced with quiet chirps. They both learned to perch on their shoulders the instant they were put their which helped Harry tremendously as carrying the bird around was tiring.

Already they were starting to look healthier and fluff was starting to give way to feathers already.

Still, having the bird with him all the time was starting to really get on his nerves, especially when he wanted some alone time with Hermione or discussing battles with the Rogues. When they were both studying spells or doing planning alone, the birds were both quite reasonable and were content to play with each other on the desk, slightly away from the couple as they scribbled and swapped ideas.

Harry had decided to draw Dumbledore out into the courtyard for the battle as it would give more space to dodge and would cause minimal damage to Hogwarts than if it were staged in the Great Hall.

When that was decided, they needed a fool proof method of getting him out into the open like where he could not force the battle anywhere else.

Hermione suggested they find doppelganger charm that Bellatrix had used. That way they could stay outside while egging him out, he'd have no choice but to come to them.

Unfortunately for the both of them, not one of the books they had knew the charm she'd used and thus Hermione was relegated to recreating the spell which didn't seem like it would be too hard given the number of spells they'd crafted in the past.

Two days later she'd still be tearing her hair out, but at least Harry finally had a name for his Phoenix: Wilheard meaning Strong-willed. He thought it was rather appropriate and the bird didn't mind.

"The work on the crown is reportedly finished my liege." Mulciber replied.

"Mulciber." Voldemort said testily. "How long have I been waiting for this crown?"

"Far too long your majesty." He replied and braced himself for the pain he knew would come shortly.

Voldemort grinned. "That look on your face is good. I like it. Come forward."

Mulciber rose from the ground and approached the Dark Lord who placed his wand to his arm and summoned his Death Eaters who very quickly started appearing and filling his throne room.

"Send for my star-crossed." He ordered Mulciber who quickly raced off, fighting the flow as everyone moved to their designated seating places.

It took a while to traverse the palace to where Susan Bones was being held. There were ten bolts that held her door shut, two of them magic resistant that had to be opened with keys that each of the two guards beside her door held.

Proof enough that she was a special trophy of the Dark Lord.

With a nod to the two men, they each undid the locks on her door, allowing the hardened ex-criminal (which was the result of all laws being declared null and void when Voldemort took his throne) to enter the room.

Susan Bones' face was not all that dissimilar from someone who had only just been put under the imperious, with the exception that she did not smile. It was the look of someone who just didn't care anymore.

Her wrists were scarred and pussy, a sound reminder of her trying to kill herself using wood from her bed. The wounds had been healed, but nobody had removed the splinters.

Other than that, she was dressed beautifully in a scarlet red robe, reading a book from England's past. She was well fed, thanks to the gratuitous use of the imperious to make her eat after she'd tried starving herself to death.

She knew what Voldemort expected of her and wanted nothing more than to escape the place, yet the man formerly known as Tom Riddle had expressed that she was not to be tortured, sexually harassed or treated as anything less than an imprisoned member of royalty.

"Your king wishes you to be present. Come."

She placed a bookmark in her book and rose to follow him back to the throne room where everything was finally getting settled down.

She was lead to a central chair facing the ruler of Voldemort who looked on with a passive face upon the proceedings.

When everyone was quiet, Voldemort began an impressive speech about the devotion of his followers and his right to rule the land, that with his crown being placed upon his head, his most faithful would receive the rewards long deserving to them.

A moment later, everybody rose for Lucius Malfoy and his Wife Narcissa as they brought forth the crown, with the man who unlocked it following nervously behind them.

When they finally made it to the steps, Voldemort pointed a bony finger at Susan and gestured for her to come forward.

She did so silently and stood near him.

"You shall be the one to crown me." He said softly. "This is quite an honour for you."

"You should give it to someone who wishes for the honour. Your majesty." She said softly, though practically spitting the last two words.

"I give it to someone who deserves it, whether they wish it or not." He gestured to Malfoy to bring forth the crown.

The velvet pillow was brought before them and Susan gently picked up the crown and hesitated while she considered crowning the bastard in a completely different way, but what did it matter? He had won anyway.

She placed the crown on his head and turned away from him as the crowd roared in glee.

When the properly crowned king had enough of it all, he raised his wand and everyone quietened.

He gestured to the arithmancer set to work on the crown who came forth.

"You have delayed this ceremony by weeks. I gave you four days to unlock this crown. Tell your king why."

"I... My lord... I..."

"Avada Kedavra!" A roar of approval rang through the hall.

"This day, begins the eternal reign of King Voldemort! Your master is pleased!"

The truth was that the real crown was hiding away in a secret place, he had been unable to decipher what the spells were as they seemed incomplete. The extra time taken were simply because he had an exact duplicate made with as many of the spells he could guess placed on it.

"Checkmate." Remus frowned.

Harry sighed. "Okay, I won't do that again..." It was a rather unusual chess board in front of them in that the pieces actually had identities rather than generic names.

The mini Harry in front of him was sending little red streaks of light at the real one in front of him as Harry tried to knock him over.

"I don't think that this is a very fair representation of the real world though Harry. I'm not Dumbledore so I have no real idea how he would think."

"Yeah, you're right." Harry agreed readily. "I'm just hoping to run through as many scenarios as possible. But I'm concerned that if Hermione doesn't finish those modifications to the doppelganger charm soon, we'll need to re-think our whole strategy."

"I still don't understand why you even need it." Remus commented.

"We need to draw him outside. Luna will not be effective outside. Using her we can make quick work of any resistance."

"I'm more worried about her stepping on us."

"Give her some time Remus, she may be a klutz at the moment, but unlike the rest of us, her entire body changed. She can't even walk around on two legs anymore. That's got to take some getting used to." Harry reasoned.

He knew that Remus was less than fond of the girl since the night she decided to dance outside at 2 in the morning, shaking the mountains all around with every uncoordinated stomp.

"What seems to be the problem with that charm anyway?"

"Every time she's had me test out the prototype, I tend to get this amalgam of glue on the floor that disintegrates in a couple of seconds. Kinda like the pumpkin pudding at Halloween at Hogwarts."

Remus chuckled. "Sounds delicious. On a completely unrelated note, had any ideas what you're going to do for your birthday in three weeks?"

"I've got no plans whatsoever. They don't mean much to me, never really have..."

Harry smiled and reached for the cup of tea sitting next to him and took a sip. He frowned disgustedly at the tea for its coldness and cast a mild warming charm on the cup which promptly exploded.

The werewolf fell off his chair in surprise and glanced up worriedly at Harry who pulled a piece of china out of his hand and winced in pain.

This action brought his mind back to the last time he had to pull crockery out of his hands and suddenly had an idea. "On second thoughts, I do know what I'd like to do for my birthday."

"Oh?"

Harry grinned evilly, got up out of his chair and moved to explain what he wanted for his birthday to Hermione, who's eyes lit up at the idea and said she knew just the thing.

It never ceased to amaze Harry how extensive the intelligence network he had really was and how most of it had been in place since the moment they had officially broken away from Voldemort's servitude.

As it would seem, there were three main players in the intelligence game. Each capable of getting information from different parts of the wizarding world through contacts that showed allegiance to no particular side; with the exception of Wormtail who didn't seem to have many friends in any world, but was however very well versed at retrieving information via torture and blackmail.

Eager to prove himself to Harry that he was trustworthy very few people that were captured from the enemy were able to keep quiet forever and were killed despite empty promises that it would save their lives.

The worst part of the spy game was that the very hint of information had twice been their undoing. Careless questions and blatant probing had given an informant enough information to tell another investigator what it was that they had been interested in which lead to the ruin of a plan involving food stores and the loss of fifteen werewolves.

Harry ordered the informer's death. He had been very angry and took the loss of lives as his own fault even if it had been Knight's carelessness.

But in all fairness, Knight had been an auror, but his glory days were long gone and his skills in intelligence gathering had gotten rusty since he'd become a Death Eater. He was a trainer and a soldier.

With this in mind, Harry did not punish knight. He had truly hoped though that his intelligence network would be more bulletproof than the other dark lords around the place. But as he learned that day, there was no such thing as a bulletproof intelligence network and that information was available to the highest bidder. Worse still was the realisation that his own arrogance had made him complacent when he reflected that both of his nemesis had a lot more experience in this game.

One thing that Harry did not know, but would have been pleased to, was that any specific information that got to either Dumbledore or Voldemort was purely second hand knowledge that tended to come from the people that the werewolves would go to for stuff that could not be found at the void, and that second hand knowledge for the most part was rather useless apart from knowing about the improvement in the way that the werewolves were being treated by their overlord.

The fact was that given the betrayals and backstabbing that had occurred between the minions of all three Dark Lords, they were starting to play their hands close to their chests. Nobody had any clue what Dumbledore had planned for when the attempt would be made to rescue Hermione's parents, but neither did he know when the Barons Black would knock at his door either.

Voldemort had suspicions about what was going on, but the idea that tho two were keeping each other amused meant that he could focus solely on his attacks on the ministry which thus far, the Barons Black had not lifted a finger against.

He did however have other plans that would affect them. After he had completed his conquest of England, involving an attack on the ministry, he was already planning a retaliation attack on the Vampires and was already amassing vampire hunters with which to take care of the traitors who dared not join him.

This kind of information was hard for Voldemort to keep silent as many of them would not swear loyalty to Voldemort and instead only to their own countries, their loyalty only overridden by their hate for Vampires.

Talks in pubs had eventually gotten to Fenrir through one of his werewolves. Talks said that they were already a thousand strong.

The Last Dark Lord frowned and immediately disapparated to speak with Dotworth.

Harry met with Dotworth alone, this time without his other half who was training and exercising.

Their location was quite different from the last time he had met the eternal Vampire they were patrolling what appeared to be either abandoned homes or perhaps just room for further growth.

"We've received word that Voldemort is planning on launching an all out attack on the vampires for joining me." Harry informed Dotworth as he inspected a home.

They were mildly Japanese in that there were wooden floorboards and rice-paper doors, but the rest of the designs were defiantly western in origin.

"I see. We have anticipated it, but I trust your sources are reliable."

"I trust the man I hear it from, but I don't trust intelligence." Harry replied with a snort. "I listen to what they have to say and plan accordingly, but I've been lead into too many traps. Planning for the most part is the only thing that has kept us alive."

"I believe your encounter at Erskine was more our intervention than any planning on your behalf."

Harry tipped his head. "Don't think I'm ungrateful." He replied in response. "However, while I was not a party to the discussions, it seems to me that there was some measure of planning for your timely response, by Cynwise was it not? There was no possible way for you to organise that many Vampires to come to our aide without any prior warning at all."

"That is a point I will give you, Cynwise did call in a favour that every one of us owed her, however we vampires will not come to your aide without that proof I mentioned in the past that you are indeed the Last Dark Lord." The old vamp informed him. "Have you thought on how you plan to do this?"

Harry handed him a newspaper clipping that was crumpled up. "I do not expect this to mean much to you, but it means a lot to my Dark Lady. This piece of paper is the start of an event that will prove these claims."

His ally read over the paper and found that it did indeed mean nothing to him. "I do not understand."

"Keep your ear to the ground friend, and in the meantime if Voldemort tries attacking you before I get word of it, have Cynwise or Luna come get me, my men will be here to help defend your home."

Dotworth nodded and held out his hand. "We appreciate the offer."

Harry took his hand. "Ralph. Ralph Dotworth."

The human grinned. "Harry Potter. I look forward to building a new world with you."

"Your attitude is inspiring. I look forward to this event you're planning."

"I'm more looking forward to the aftermath." Harry smiled mysteriously.

"You almost make me wish to turn you, if nothing more than so I can force you to tell me what you're up to."

Harry did not respond and instead, they passed the last house and started moving deeper into the mountain that housed the Vampires.

"I am curious to know if I do not overstep my bounds, exactly what it was that Cynwise did that made vampires willing to lie their lives down because she asked you to."

Ralph seemed to fight himself as to whether or not to respond to the young man then after a moment, came to a decision.

"A short time ago, I think it was probably the 1870s I think..." Harry grinned and covered his mouth. "Yes, I suppose that's a long time for you but... It doesn't matter. We were a very free flowing race back then we turned who we wanted, we feasted on others. It didn't matter. I mean to say, we did have standards of course. Only the best would be chosen to become one of us.

"Up until that point, we were the top of the food chain. Nobody except a few vampire hunters were able to kill us off, however they were very rarely equipped to handle more than one of us. Then one day, a middle-aged human turned up. Couldn't have been more than 40 years old.

"He'd apparently promised the crown that he would drive us out of their country and formed what could only be described as a battalion of vampire hunters and wizards. He trained others until they out-numbered us two to one. That's a lot of humans I needn't tell you.

"His name was Richard Dumbledore. Father of the well known Albus. He was a heartless bastard but open in his ambitions.

"There was a point which mounted a showdown. Us versus them. It looked as though it was going to be a bloody battle and neither of us could have predicted what was going to happen.

"We had tried assassinating their leaders in the night, however our numbers were not sufficient to kill off even one of their leaders, and then she came along.

"While I never saw exactly what happened, it seems that your young friend took it up on herself to go and play in amongst the wizards and hunters camp at night where she happened upon young Albus being scolded by his father.

"I understand that he scolded her at being in the campus and as he went to find who she belonged to, she bit him and I believe that while she never meant to, she did in fact turn him.

"We heard screams in the night and ran to see what was happening when we found that Cynwise was killing their own people in the camps, apparently starting with the top brass and moving down.

"My sire was leading the battle and soon gave a call to arms at which we all joined in the fight and all but wiped them out, but nobody had a higher body count than that girl. She possessed a strange sword which was able to cut through wizard shields. She was terrifying, but without her initiative, there was no way that could have come out with so many lives. She literally saved my life twice that night, however my sire was killed.

"Albus, as you know escaped that night and Cynwise... well... I'm sure you know her well enough to know what she's like. After that she went to just acting like a petulant child. Many of us were quite embarrassed that she succeeded where so many failed.

"What we didn't find out till much later is that her Master, Aelred, had been kept prisoner there and we vampires are, she felt the death of her master and that is what caused her to do it."

Harry nodded gave a pained grin. "She's funny like that. Even now that she's grown up, she isn't all that different. Still, she asked my wife to name her phoenix after Aelred."

"He was a great man, I'm sure he'd be happy to have had an eternal creature named after him.

"It was shortly after all of that, Albus caught up with her alone and managed to catch her and have her put on trial for her causing the death of his father. The official statement says that she turned him and he was forced to kill his own father." Ralph concluded the story. "And now that you've brought it up, I think I shall ask for your story on how that happened in exchange for the tale I just told you."

Harry grinned and told what he understood happened that night.

When the story was told, Dotworth asked for a demonstration of Harry's power, but the Baron was unsure what kind of magic he could do without damaging something, he wasn't going to try blowing up anything while he was in a cave and he didn't want to try blinding himself yet again, so Harry asked for a raincheck.

With that over, Harry decided that it was time to get back to doing some non-diplomatic work and excused himself to attend to his wife who probably throwing up again by now and in need of moral support, lest her mood swings be taken out on someone undeserving.

His contact with the vampire world smiled and wished him the very best of luck and was left duly stunned as Harry took a chunk out of the cave as he apparated away.

The night's discussion however left one question left in Harry's mind about the childish Vampire. How the hell did she know McGonagall if she'd been in prison for a hundred and twenty five years.

The answer was easily forthcoming from the witch as the vampire was unwilling to respond, deliberately ignoring the question and instead, inviting him to play "Go Fish" with her, Luna and little Benjamin, one of the werewolf cubs.

Minerva told her that every few years, Albus would parade her in front of his Defence Against the Dark Arts class as a prime example of what vampires could look like. That was before she lost her teeth however, which had only happened in the last 50 years as she recalled.

With that in mind, Harry promised himself that he would never inquire of Cynwise any further details. He wondered how it must feel for a vampire to be sentenced to life in Azkaban. That was a completely different scale of time.

Hermione was still in the training room, practising her movements against knight and doing rather well. Watching her, Harry was able to see that she wouldn't be a liability for this mission except for the emotional concern he felt even watching her spar.

Part of him wanted to curse Knight but knowing that being so completely overprotective would only piss off his wife and wouldn't help make sure she was in top shape for the upcoming battle. He needed to make sure that she had every advantage possible.

Even as he watched, Harry couldn't help but acknowledge that she was beautiful and graceful in a way that refuelled a fire that had dulled down after a night of familial activities the night before.

When Harry offered to take over for knight and spar with her, she declined and mentioned she was at the end of her strength. Knight nodded and asked Harry how his meeting with the vampires went.

Harry told the truth without giving away the vampire's history. It was not something they wished shared and Harry would respect that. The meeting went well and that they could expect no help from the Vampires until after the night.

This put Knight's nose a bit out of joint as he desperately wanted as many allies as he could muster. Harry however told him to make do and explained that they were not allies as yet. They were merely an interested party in negotiations. The prize at the end looked nice, but without a demonstration of power, Harry's words were just that.

With that said, Harry ejected knight from the building and turned to his wife, with a look of adoration in his eyes.

"Have I told you how beautiful you are today?"

Hermione conjured a towel and started drying her forehead of sweat. "Not today you haven't, but I'm not sure I believe you."

"Oh?" The husband replied.

"Well, you haven't exactly done a conclusive study on it. I think you should join me for a bath before you even consider giving results as conclusive."

Harry put on his best Victor Krum impression. "wery vell, ve shall haf to moof to phase two zen before I submit my report to you. Please, test subjekt numba one, remoof your attire."

Hermione laughed and smacked him upside the head. "Your impressions are awful."

"You're right, I can't even impersonate a Dark Lord properly. I'm not sure why though, it's either because I smile too much or because my evil laugh isn't quite believable yet?"

"Oh?" His beloved asked amusedly. "I didn't even know you had an evil laugh, when did this develop? I think you should show it to me before you try using it in public."

Harry thought for half a second before giving a high pitched girly giggle with a curious sigh that raised in pitch at the end. Hermione couldn't believe the noise coming from his mouth and laughed till she was crying.

"Harry, that is not evil, that is creepy!"

Harry lead her into the bathroom. "Can you offer any suggestions for improvement then?"

Hermione started removing her training clothes. "Yeah, give it up."

Harry watched serenely as she unclasped her bra and removed her pants and underwear.

When she was naked, he approached her and started running his hands over her. She shivered in pleasure. "Feels wonderful darling, why don't you come join me in the bath?"

Harry grinned and did ask she asked. Harry's report hadn't changed after he'd seen her naked and clean. She was still stunning.

Hermione however insisted that he needed to do phase 3 yet, how she looked over time. She worried if he would still say the same things when she was round as a beach ball.

Harry however, told her that he could see the future and saw that she was still beautiful even then. He kissed her passionately and she rewarded him for his attempts at keeping her happy.

"Come forth Severus and give me the news I wish to hear."

"Your Majesty. Dumbledore recently put into place a trap to lure out the Granger girl using her parents as bait, using them as teachers and deliberately advertising their appointment in the newspapers."

"I was under the impression they were muggles were they not?"

"That is my understanding sir. I believe it is simply a ruse to bring the Barons black out of hiding and nothing more."

"And?"

"They have not so much stuck their noses out yet, the old man believes that they intend to appear on the first of September."

"And what say your sources about the Baron's force?"

"Nothing my lord. As far as we can tell, they have vanished off the face of the earth."

"Bullshit Severus! They have been attacking my facilities! Those blasted flea-bitten werewolves have been attacking my food supplies!"

Severus backed up against a desk as Voldemort stood and turned on him.

"Information on where they are hiding is scarce. We have a few prisoners from his camp, from the attacks on those facilities, but when asked where their base is, they all say 'The Void', which I'd assume is the name of the place. Thus far, we've managed to track the place to Norway by ripping the information from their heads, but the problem is that when we went to the place they described, there was nothing there but a hole in the ground."

Voldemort lifted his eyebrow. "I see." The image running through his mind was little more than a mine-shaft.

"It matters not. Potter will keep the old man indisposed long enough for us to launch our attack on the ministry on the first. You are to use your Dark Mark to inform me when the time arises."

"It will be done my lord."

"Now then, what of your other project?"

"I have had to increase my staff to twenty and thus far, none of them have come up with anything satisfactory. We have heard news of a method called 'IVF', however it is a muggle method that seems so far to be most promising."

"Unacceptable. Do you propose that the muggles are capable of doing anything better than us?"

"N-No my lord. I just meant that it is all we have found so far. I'm certain we can find something, otherwise we'll have to see about creating a method ourselves."

"Get another twenty working on that now Severus. I give you permission to use any woman in this country for the research except for my star-crossed."

"Thank you my lord. I shall endeavour to get your desired result as soon as I can."

"See that you do Severus. My patience is waning."

Hermione grinned to herself in the dark. This was just the kind of break she needed.

Everyone was being overly protective of her and getting them to agree to her participating in Harry's birthday present. She could appreciate why they were desperately trying to keep her out of the loop, but she couldn't help but feel animosity about it.

She would not be a liability at this point in her pregnancy.

Hermione shook the thoughts from her head. This was not a day to think about these things. They were on a mission.

This was not a mission out of need. There would be no Death Eaters, Order members or political figures killed in this mission. There would be no food pilfered.

It was quite childish really when she thought about it.

"What do you want for your birthday?" She had asked him when he had brought it up earlier.

"Right now, I have everything I could ever want. I have a beautiful wife, my first little 'un on the way, and more magical power than I know what to do with." He had replied earnestly. "Short of killing two people I really despise." His eyes had flickered to the large pile of paper that had floor plans of Hogwarts, copied from the marauder's map. It did not work from Norway, it was unable to pick up who was in the place, but it would be invaluable when they moved to attack the castle. "We're not ready for that yet however.

"So, what could a guy with everything want for his birthday? Remus got me thinking and I decided that what I want for my birthday... Is a drill."

"A drill?" Hermione asked. "I know that you have been having troubles with your 'home improvement' spells, but I really don't think a drill will work, we have no electricity."

"Oh, I have no reason to use it. More for revenge."

Hermione wondered why getting a drill would account for revenge on anybody and hadn't found out until she had asked Minerva if she understood the significance of it.

Now she knew. A light flickered silently on her wrist, a signal for her to slice off the service door and dash inside, Cynwise right behind her.

With a loud whoosh, the ceiling caved and showered all the midnight workers in glass, many of them screamed but found themselves suddenly silenced, which caused them to panic even more.

Harry appeared before them wearing the same suit of armour that had worn to the wedding, now restored to its original looks.

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" Harry called, making them all stop dead in their tracks and look towards him. "I'm looking for Vernon Dursley, he is here isn't he?" He pointed to a man and released his silencing. "Where is he?" Harry asked menacingly.

"He… he… he's not here…" The man stuttered in fear.

"He's not?" Harry asked in surprise and looked at Wormtail who cowered. "You said he was rostered on tonight…"

"He w-was…" The man replied. "But he called in, h-his wife is sick."

Harry sighed, his fearsome image crumbling immediately. "Well that sucks." He said. "Well, I'm still going to take every drill you have."

"We… don't make drills."

"Yeah you do." Harry replied as he walked over to a conveyor belt. "What do you call…" He picked up what he thought was a drill and instead found a crude fully automatic machine gun. "…this?"

"It's… it's a gun sir."

Hermione approached Harry who turned to her and gave a disappointed smile. "No Vernon, no drills."

"Is that a machine gun in your hand?" She asked him.

"Yeah, looks like the Death Eaters have overrun this place." Harry called to the invisible dragon sticking her head through the roof. "Luna! We're going to have to make a house call instead! If you're hungry, these people are all yours!"

Nobody saw the big grin that appeared on the dragon's face as she snapped up her first human, snapping the man in half and letting the blood drip down her throat before using her lizard like tongue to dislodge the body from her teeth and downing the rest of him.

"Once a vampire, always a vampire." Hermione commented. "Shame about Vernon, but we're going to need to bring this place down."

"Yeah, I suppose that will be mildly satisfying, but hardly therapeutic. Let Knight and Pettigrew handle it, we'll take the werewolves and go to privet drive." Harry replied. "Though, I was hoping to avoid going there." He instinctively flexed his hand as he thought about the last time he had been there with his bandaged hand.

"I'm sure that either the Order or Voldemort's crew will be around in a bit, especially after the place has been levelled."

Hermione nodded and disappeared.

Harry moved to where the other rogues had everyone surrounded at wand-point. "Fenrir, we're changing target. We haven't planned it, but it shouldn't be a problem. Have everyone meet me outside."

Fenrir grinned and everyone moved. "Knight, Wormtail. This place is a breeding ground for trouble. I want this place in flames."

They both nodded.

"Then I'll see you back at the Void."

A few moments later, everyone left was set surrounding the block of land that was Privet drive, he noticed that the car was full of suitcases and that the boot was tied down with bungy cords.

Hermione held his hand as they both looked on amused. "He's skipping town."

"I think that's rather obvious my love." His wife replied. "I won't let them get away though, they're your birthday present after all, and after all the horrible things they did to you, even I would like to work off some steam on them."

A grumbling Vernon came through the open door with a TV hiding his face and waddling to the car with it like a penguin.

"Lend the fellow a hand would you darling? The poor man can barely see where he's going." She said loudly and then whispered in his ear. "Go on love, you need this." She gave him a gentle shove. 'He needs this…' she told herself as if to reassure herself.

Harry shook his head and chuckled silently. He strode across the grass to the car and said "Here, let me get the door for you."

"Ah, thanks." Vernon placed the TV in the car.

"Where you headed?"

"Thought we'd head off to France." Vernon replied from inside the car.

"Don't like your chances." Harry replied. "Those freaks have the tunnel blocked off."

"I've got a gun that should convince them to…" Vernon was now out of the car and staring directly at a decisively taller man than the one he had beat to a pulp not long before he had left. His eyes flickered over to the brunette in the deep green robe on her pavement.

"Won't work. Their shields will hold against a few bullets, though you're welcome to try if you even make it that far."

Harry gestured inside the house as he shut the car door.

Dursley looked at his hand suspiciously.

"What?"

"You've got more stuff to get don't you? Besides, I'd like to have a cup of tea with you all before you go."

Vernon slowly nodded and moved back to the house. "Petunia! Put some tea on!"

"WHAT!? I just packed the crockery!"

"Coming Hermione?"

"Of course." She replied with a grin, she had hoped that it would come to this. She had spent a while researching curses specifically for this occasion. "I will ask you though to tone things down a bit tonight, my constitution isn't what it used to be," She placed her hand on her stomach to emphasise the point.

"I can't promise that." Harry said with a frown as he looked at the house. "But you can leave whenever you wish, the werewolves will keep you safe."

She nodded in acceptance.

"Will you all be alright?" She asked the disillusioned werewolves behind them.

"We'll be fine my lady," They replied.

So with their approval, the Barons moved into the house.

The house hadn't changed recently.

"This feels rather nostalgic." Harry remarked as he moved into the kitchen where his aunt was unpacking a few cups.

She dropped the cup she was holding when she heard the voice and turned, startled.

She stumbled with her speech as the speech centre of her brain caught up with the logic processing part.

"It's nice to see I'm not the only one who breaks cups and plates in this place." Harry mused.

Hermione did her part at being civil and repaired the cup, making Petunia wince as the cup flew back into her hand.

"So, you came crawling back did you?" Vernon asked as he came from his office, obviously hiding something behind his back.

"Do I look like I'm on my hands and knees to you?" Harry asked, mildly amused. "What's that behind your back?" He asked. "Knowing you, it's not a birthday present. Accio."

An envelope flew out of Vernon's hands and into Harry. This alone surprised Harry as he'd been expecting a knife or that gun Vernon had been talking about.

Hermione raised an eyebrow in question as Harry opened it and pulled out the letter on the inside.

He opened up the letter and got as far as "Dear Mr Potter." Before he felt a familiar tug on his navel.

In a panic, Harry called upon his magic for an incendio and the portkey combusted in his hands before it has the chance to fully activate. The flames roared intensely in his hands, causing him to drop the letter rather quickly and inspect his hand.

"Harry!" Hermione called, summoning a shield in front of him as a gunshot rang in the house. A ricochet sounded and Vernon screamed.

"Expelliaramus!" The gun flew from Petunia's hands.

Even without the shield, Petunia would not have hit Harry, but his not leaving had been a complete surprise and by shielding Harry, Hermione had unknowingly protected herself from being shot.

Not that either of them realised that.

"Watch Petunia." Harry commanded his wife as he approached Vernon. "So who put you up to this? Dumbledore or Voldemort?" When Vernon didn't respond, Harry summoned the bullet from the wound.

"F-Fuck you!" Vernon yelled at him.

Harry drew his sword and gently poked the bullet wound with it.

Vernon screamed again, but even when Harry pulled the weapon out, he refused to answer. So he slid it in a little further.

"Stop it!" His aunt called. "It-It was Dumbledore."

"Did you notify the Order?" Harry asked. Vernon nodded.

"We should probably hurry then." Hermione commented.

Harry nodded, mildly annoyed. "My birthday present was your lives. I'm going to kill you both for what you did to me over the years. I was thinking about turning Dudley into a boar and forcing you both to eat him, but seeing as he isn't here, we'll just have to improvise."

"Harry!" Hermione scolded. "Eating their own son! I told you I have a weak stomach!"

Harry looked abashed, but did not apologise, instead, he glanced at his aunt and offered her to Hermione to do with as she pleased.

Hermione gave a feral grin and made Harry promise that under no circumstances should he look in this direction, which he freely gave.

Harry towered above Vernon who was still lying on the floor, panting, and stabbed his sword into Vernon's hand. Vernon screamed and rolled over to grasp his hand.

"Hurts doesn't it?" Harry asked as he pushed the blade into Vernon's shoulder this time, forcing him back to the floor and letting his voice drown out the cries of his aunt whom Hermione held at wand-point.

"But I'll bet you never understood what pain was, even when you were inflicting it on me." Harry left his sword where it was, embedded in his arm and stapling him to the floor and stepped backwards towards Hermione. "Crucio!"

When he finally lifted the spell from his uncle, he gave him a dehydration curse, causing him to sweat profusely, and the blood in his wounds seemed to evaporate out of his wounds in small clouds of red.

Meanwhile, Hermione had petrified petunia and slipped her a potion from a vial she had prepared earlier and been chanting a long series of incantations, the first of which had Petunia drooling and looking nowhere in particular.

Hermione had transfigured a plastic pear on the table into a set of shaded glasses that she couldn't even see through.

Now, Harry's aunt's hair was falling out of her head and the skin on her head started writhing.

The Last Dark Lord looked on in satisfaction as Vernon became emaciated. Pulling a vial out of his pocket which he'd brought for the occasion, he held it above Vernon. "Thirsty? I'll let you have this."

Vernon, in a sane state of mind would have definitely say no, but his need for water far outweighed any logic in his mind. So much so that he snatched the vile from Harry's hands and downed it, completely ignoring the pain from his bad shoulder.

Still, the clear liquid was hardly enough to satisfy his thirst and in fact, burnt his throat even as it went down and started liquefying his innards.

Harry smiled in satisfaction. He was good as dead now. A bezoar would not cure this particular poison which had been stolen from Voldemort's stashes in one raid.

"I'm done Harry." Hermione said as she released his aunt from the petrification.

"What have you done to me!?" Petunia hissed snakily.

Harry turned to look but Hermione yelped. "DON'T LOOK!" She pushed him towards the door.

"She's still alive." Harry commented.

"I turned her into a trap for the order." Hermione said smugly. "Now let's go before they arrive. They've been slow to arrive already."

They stepped out of the door and Harry mentally thought to himself that they were getting what they deserved. Perhaps they were once nice people before they'd been obliviated, but all Harry felt for them was hate and contempt. They were getting what they deserved.

And with a soft pop, left to enjoy the last two hours of his birthday with his wife in a completely different fashion.

Sixteen people appeared on the scene literally two minutes after the attacking force left.

"Shit." A young man, Graham cursed as he looked over at the car. "Where the hell did he think he was going?"

As they approached the house, they heard crying from the inside.

"The house, team." Charlie Weasley called as he signalled them to approach the house. "Let's focus. Harry is here somewhere."

The team of Order members surrounded the house and a minute later, they all broke into the house simultaneously.

The house was silent apart from the sound of crying from somewhere.

The team broke into a downstairs and an upstairs team.

The downstairs team was shocked to find Vernon Dursley, barely alive in the kitchen.

His chest barely moving and his mouth frothing as he spasmed. His nervous system incorrectly transmitting signals down his nerves making him twitch regularly.

"He's too far gone. There's next to nothing left to repair." The team medic replied. "I can't save him."

Upstairs was a different story. That's where the sobbing had come from.

Iggy, as his team mates called him, jumped into Dudley's room, finding nothing.

The next member, Graham reached the master bedroom of the house and found a woman staring at her Mirror.

"Ma'am, Are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere?"

"Please help me!" She said, turning her tear stained face to him, showing a bundle of hair made of snakes.

He jumped back in surprise and shouted. His shout was cut short after his face turned a pasty grey and his eyes glazed over.

Petunia Dursley screamed at the stone statue where a man had once been.

"Graham! Are you alright!" Two more men jumped into the room and caught sight of the Dursley Matriarch's face, before knowing no more.

Petunia pushed past the statues and ran downstairs where everybody else was gathering at the noise.

Nobody left the house that night except Petunia Dursley who ran into the night, screaming.

When the happy couple woke up in the morning, they both felt like a weight had been lifted off their shoulders.

Harry had of course hoped that Dudley had been home, but he had not. Presumably he was off terrorising the neighbourhood still.

If all went well, he'd catch up with the fat whale later.

It had been a good day yesterday and today was shaping up to be just as good when Fenrir met with him in the morning and said that many of the werewolves were happy to help him out with the attack on Hogwarts. It was a huge weight taken from his shoulders.

Many had offered to stay behind to do support.

Hermione had eventually come across a theory of what had happened on the day that her ritual with Harry had completed. It had been plaguing her thoughts ever since it had occurred.

There were only a few inconsistencies with her theory, but it was something to start with. There was the fact that not one of the ones involved in the accident disliked the change, not one of them had complained. So it was her preliminary theory that the flow of magic had granted them whatever they had wished they could change about themselves.

Cynwise had said that she wouldn't give up being a vampire, and Minerva had on a few occasions complained that she was getting too old to be of use to them.

Knight's change was less obvious as to what it was that he wanted for himself. Hermione doubted that what he really wanted for himself deep down was to be a muscle man.

The biggest inconsistency in her theory was Luna, surely nobody could possibly really wish for themselves that they were a dragon completely incapable of camouflaging into anything except an innocuous life size doll's house!

Yet on that note, if there was anybody that would wish that for themselves, it would be her. 'That girl's brain was assembled horribly wrong.' She mused to herself.

Then there was the fact that in the mind world magic was completely corrosive whereas in the real world, it had just done weird, unpredictable things to everyone that had been immersed in it.

That in itself wasn't really a surprise at all given that in the mind world, they were hardly physical bodies, despite how it seemed at the time. It just meant that pure magic was probably corrosive to the spirit when applied directly.

Her studies into the events that transpired had her quite mad at the Sorting Hat which had once again completely downplayed any danger at all.

As the two of them had taken more and more of the potion, it brought the two mind worlds closer in sync with each other until Harry and Hermione were perfectly synchronised for a couple of weeks. At that point, the only thing holding them together long enough to conceive their child was the essence of both Ron and Draco. Killing the two of them was completely unnecessary, but it was the lightning that was the result of the conception of their child that tore down the wall and gave free access to the river of magic that flowed behind the wall.

If they had been killed before the child had conceived, the wall would not have cracked.

It was the white phoenix that had told her that the amount of magic present was unnatural and that the sea of magic in their mind-worlds was being converted from their love for each other, love being an unlimited resource.

Except that it wasn't an unlimited resource. If their love should fail and dwindle away, they would use up their magic and end up as squibs.

The fact that Harry could pull so much magic from the mind world at once made her think that if he could master the use of such a large pool of magic, that he would be truly unstoppable. But even to date, his use of magic was clumsy at best. He was very good at destroying buildings, but there was no way that Harry could selectively kill people while keeping hostages and allies alive, for that he tended to use his sword.

She had still not been able to figure out why exactly it was that Harry was so much stronger than herself. Sometimes it seemed hardly fair, but watching Harry stun one of the chairs and having it go completely limp that it made a better cushion than a chair, she didn't seem to mind that much.

Events like that were quickly making Harry even shorter tempered than she was at times.

Still, when Hermione realised that without the love between her and her husband she would be incapable of doing anything more than lecturing someone to death. The key then to their downfall would be in someone giving them another love potion.

For that realisation, she actually thanked Albus Dumbledore. Without his interference, she probably wouldn't have come up with the theory in the first place.

Once the realisation was made, she resolved that nobody could find out about this except Harry. Not even any of the other Rogues. If he truly was the last dark lord, and they all knew for a fact that he was. Allowing that information to escape would just be setting them up for a fall.

These thoughts skimmed through Hermione's mind as she continued working lazily on her modifications of the Doppelganger charm.

While not a complex charm when broken down into arithmantic formulae, illusions being one of the first kinds of spell that students created in arithmancy, these ones needed an intelligence of their own. Parts of which taken from the imperio curse. They needed to be completely tangible, borrowing from advanced conjuration.

Putting it all together however was not easy. The simple charm had become a monster that was closer to conjuration than its original counterpart and she was seriously thinking about other avenues answers however were not forthcoming due to the catastrophic failures that were being produced.

She sighed and leaned back on her chair, glancing at the calendar on the wall and a clipping of the article about her parents stuck next to it.

Her stomach growled at her neglect, causing Aelred to give a curious hoot like noise.

She glanced down and smiled. "HARRY!" She bellowed. "Could you please get me a glass of milk and some cookies?"

Harry who was practicing swords stances didn't stop to reply to her but did move back to moves he was more familiar with so he wouldn't need to concentrate as much.

"What? That's an easy one! Why don't you get Dobby to get it for you?" He whinged back.

"Two reasons darling," She called back. "You were the one who did this to me, so you can at least play the father and support your family! The other thing, is that Dobby has been conjuring food."

"So?" Came the disembodied voice. "Food is food."

"Harold James, whatever possessed you to think that conjured food was nutri..." She went silent for a second and two words ran through her head. Possessed, and conjured.

"Sweety?" Harry called tentatively.

"MILK AND BISCUITS HARRY! NOW! And then you can come over here and spend some time with me!"

"Alright, alright... I'm going..." Harry said dejectedly and stepped outside so he wouldn't ruin his training hall.

Knowing better than to screw up hard work that she may yet need to return to, she rolled up her current work and stood it on its end along with the seventeen other scrolls of notes she'd created working on this spell.

Before Harry delivered the food raided from the werewolves' storage facility, he took the opportunity to speak to his resident cook about his methods of creating the food. Dobby took it as expected and broke down crying and started punishing himself when he thought he'd done something wrong.

Once it was under control and he'd promised to only use real food from now on, Harry brought the milk and cookies to his wife and explained that the issue was taken care of.

"You just wanted to have an excuse to not get me stuff." She pouted.

"Just in the event that I'm in the middle of something really important and can't do it for you."

"You mean the baby and I aren't the most important thing to you!?" She said angrily.

Knight chose that moment to enter the study, saw the colour of Hermione's aura and gave a distinct "Uh oh," Before leaving again.

"That's not what I meant." Harry grumbled. "I meant if I'm at a meeting where you can't get in contact with me. You can depend on me to do anything if I'm contactable and not fighting or something."

She seemed mildly placated at that and Harry silently thanked his wit for dodging that bullet. Now came the next phase of letting her mood swing back. "What was it you wanted to speak to me about?"

"Oh!" She grinned happily. "I had an idea on the doppelgangers. I think we need to possess some conjured duplicates of ourselves."

"That kind of requires that a conjuration has a mind to begin with doesn't it?"

"Well, yes, but I believe that a modified conjuration-transfiguration of a mouse should do it well enough. We'll use the mouse brain in the conjuration for the possessed brain."

Harry frowned. The idea was sound but... "Are you sure we have enough time to get such a thing working?"

"Trust me my beloved. I'll do it."

Harry kissed her forehead. "If anybody can, it's you."

She beamed with pride.

As August passed, everybody worked themselves into a sweat, training. Those who were not participating in the battle were being trained by the healers basic triage and first aid.

Remus could be found continually checking over the fourteen cauldrons filled with almost complete Wolfsbane potion, four others ensuring that nothing happened to the potions that they all depended upon.

Knight could be found lording over the werewolves as they engaged in mock hand-to-hand combat battles and sword fighting while he wasn't working personally with Minerva to bring up her skills as a duellist.

It was obvious to the rogues that something was growing between the two of them, small blushes here and there, an odd invitation to read together.

Then they heard Knight start calling her 'Minnie'. The others didn't know whether to tease them or to let them grow their own relationship. A small meeting deciding on the latter after Hermione vetoed the idea of moving McGonagall's bed into Knight's abode.

It was a welcome event though. It gave Minerva a dedication they hadn't seen since she was teaching at school.

Cynwise, though she still spent a lot of time playing with the kids, started spending more and more time with the rogues. Her contributions were not always helpful, like the time she suggested that Harry and Dumbledore play tag on a minefield or that Hermione could distract him by transfiguring his robes into a tutu. But they did give a few 'hmmm' moments.

Luna on the other hand was conscripted by Phillip Bastion the smith to heat metal as he made crude swords that were functional, but he had a far way to go before they were truly effective. For now they did an interesting job of both cutting and bludgeoning at the same time. Some most of the cutting blade was very sharp, but other sections of the blade were dull and round, making those parts more club like than a blade. Either way, they looked pretty menacing and Harry was happy to have someone making use of the bits of metal they'd found while digging the caves.

Harry had offered to teach the smith a few hexes that would do the trick nicely, but Phillip grimly told him that he was a muggle before he became a vampire, so Harry offered to get him whatever he needed to improve.

When Luna wasn't doing playing pink furnace, she'd be hunting animals on the mountain range. At night time, she demonstrated her ability to apparate the way Cynwise did still and would come home with food for the werewolves and shiny trinkets to fill her cave with.

Peter Pettigrew spent a lot of time gathering intelligence, mostly on the Dark Lord Voldemort's plans and confirmed that he too was planning for a major battle, but the pawns didn't know the target. He was unable to report one way or the other if Voldemort was planning on using the chance to attack whoever was left at the end, but evidence suggested he had another target in mind.

He was also able to discern that there was little to suggest that the Order of the Phoenix would be participating in the upcoming battle as Dumbledore had them guarding other key facilities such as the replacement hospital and the Ministry of Magic.

Harry had spent all of his spare time in meditation and practise training in order to control his magic. He was still unable to use magic at a normal level, but he at least got it to about what it used to be at maximum before the ritual.

Hermione was doing what she did best. Research, when she wasn't throwing up. Her morning sickness had started to worsen in the last couple of weeks of August. But she still managed to pull through, four days before the battle was to take place but she had managed to completely out-do herself in crafting the spell which was a mini-ritual in its own right.

She and Harry both practised it until they had it perfect that they could create a single doppelganger. It had all the properties they normally had except that their auras were visible even to the couple which gave them something to be truly amazed about as they hadn't ever seen them before since they'd become more expressive.

Hermione had warned him though that because the spell was possession, it would be like having four eyes and was quite disorienting if you didn't close your real eyes before manipulating the doppelganger which was as simple as wishing it to do something.

She was sure that with time she could have perfectly duplicated Bellatrix' spell, but for now this spell would suffice.

The two phoenixes were now stringing together complex sentences and holding conversations with their chosen.

It was fascinating that each of them distinctly remembered Fawkes, but only as their origin, nothing more but they did understand the circumstances under which they were created and strangely enough didn't seem to hold it against them and instead insisted that it was how it was supposed to be.

Wilheard's temperament in particular only seemed to get worse with age and even though each of them now looked like proper phoenixes there were a number of traits that were most definitely wrong. Wilheard's song caused people to cower in fear for example and was unable to lift heavy items. Whereas Aelred was incapable of fire-travel but at least his song lifted people's spirits. They once sang a duet which almost caused a riot from the confusion they caused.

The last preparations were made on August 31st. The werewolves were distributed straps with which they could strap swords to their backs in such a way they wouldn't lose them in the transformation and every single one of the fighters were given a flagon of wolfsbane.

Each of the straps were charmed by Harry and Hermione to be portkeys so that they could return as needed if everything fell apart or if Voldemort decided to show up.

The healers and the trainees all prepared spare beds and extra guards were assigned to the prison cells.

Lastly, everyone was reminded of the rules of evacuation if The Void was Voldemort's target. It was doubtful, but they had to have these rules in place.

At 6 pm on that last day, Harry once again found himself upon the tree stump addressing the werewolves with Wilheard on his shoulder, Hermione standing with Aelred against the tree.

"Everyone, Thanks for coming. Tonight, will be the last night you sleep with three Dark Lords looming over you. Tomorrow, marks the beginning of my war it is the night that I officially rise as the Last Dark Lord. Tomorrow I shall shed the name Baron Black and I wish for you all to acknowledge that the cruel and heartless Baron is dead.

"In his place, you will find the person who will calm the world and bring unity to all. You will find me cruel to those who displease me without justification. You will find me defiant against all who would oppress others in the name of pathetic narrow-minded ideals. I will be ruthless in my battles yet I shall be merciful to those who deserve it.

"It has been a concept that even I have found difficult to accept, yet the prophecy seems to have moulded itself around me instead.

"Every single one of you. You have offered your services to me as my warriors, my defenders, my healers, my keepers, my feeders, my planners. Every one of you has a place in my world and I shall make sure that all of you get the recognition, the freedom and the acceptance each and every one of you deserve. It will take time, but it will happen, trust me on that.

"I feel, that tomorrow will go off without a hitch. It is my desire and hope that every single one of you comes back unharmed tomorrow and it is not an unreasonable hope.

"Tonight, I wish for you all to spend the night doing whatever it is you want to do. Relax, spend time with your loved ones and enjoy life for what it is. Tomorrow, at 4 pm, when my flare lights up the sky, each and every one of you participating in the battle is to assemble here. Everybody else is to go to their designated stations. You have my thanks."

A cheer rose through the crowed and both Wilheard and Aelred leapt off their partner's shoulders to fly around the group, Wilheard allowing Aelred to sing alone for this occasion. It was their first flight, adding to the moment.

A few werewolves cleared the centre of the gathering and started gathering wood at the centre lighting a bonfire as tall as the trees.

A couple even apparated home to pick up some instruments and together, started playing music turning the evening into a real party. Even the Lady and Lord of the evening joined in dancing, if you can call bouncing to the beat 'dancing'.

Some of the werewolves would approach them at various times during the night and hand the Lords envelopes, containing wills. It was an uneasy thing to accept but they would do that.

Many of the werewolves had become friends of varying degrees to each of them and Harry dearly hoped that he would not have to read any of them out any time soon.

After a few hours, The Potters took their absence to go back to their cave, where they allowed each other to become amorous with one another once more and they made love as if were their last time together.

When they finally relaxed in each other's arms Harry finally allowed himself a moment of weakness to tell his lover that he was scared. He was worried that it was all a mistake and that he was going to get pasted the moment he convinced Dumbledore to stop playing games.

Hermione kissed his head and told him that she'd reintroduce her parents to him the following night then stroked his hair until he fell asleep and herself soon afterwards.

Almost everybody in The Void slept in the following morning, with the exception of the smith who was still working on new swords for a few last people.

Everybody else was checking their equipment and having last minute spars with one another.

As the time before the attack counted down, Harry finally moved to put on his armour and allowed himself a joke at Hermione's expense that she should put on her wedding dress.

She stuck her tongue out at him and placed her arms in her dragonhide armour, a belated wedding gift from Knight, McGonagall and Remus.

It certainly looked a darned sight better than the dementor cloaks. Harry admitted as he appraised her body.

Hermione handed her a cage with two mice in them and they double checked their portkeys.

With those details taken care of, they each turned to their phoenixes waiting on the tables and told them to stay.

"I will wait for you." Hermione's bird replied.

Wilheard on the other hand screeched. "Am I not good enough for you?"

"Wait until you get a bit bigger fella. I don't want Dumbledore getting wind of what happened to Fawkes."

"Hmph." The bird replied. "I will stay as long as I know you will not be in danger." The bird decided. "and I demand you bring back some treats for me."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'll see what I can do." Was his reply as if he barely intended to even look.

Hermione took Harry by the arm. "It's four o'clock love."

Harry nodded and lead her outside before pointing his wand skyward and shooting the flare which illuminated the whole area.

They had timed the whole event that they wouldn't appear in Hogwarts until after the first years had gotten out of the boats, ensuring that all the staff were inside the building.

The entire cohort apparated one by one to the outskirts of Hogsmeade, carefully trying to avoid notice and started a procession up to Hogwarts gates. Every person there passed inside and stopped, aligning themselves with the walls and forming a line towards the forbidden forest with the exception of the rogues who each stood ahead of them.

The only one not present was Luna who had gone to the cave Sirius had once lived in.

With a nod, Harry shook hands with Fenrir and wished them luck and safety before leading the Rogues to the courtyard.

When they arrived at their designated places, Harry and Hermione each got out their cages and each started the complex spells to create their doppelgangers.

A mould of flesh appeared and hovered in the air and Harry grabbed one of the mice and stuffed it in the putty like flesh before moving onto another chant, which after a few moments took on a human appearance and with a modified doppelganger charm, applied his own appearance to the mould, giving a splitting image of himself. The last thing he needed to do, was to possess the doll.

As he cast the curse on the doll, he was once more assaulted by the dual vision phenomenon and closed his real eyes and turned to Hermione. After she had finished her own possession a moment later, he made his doppelganger kiss her real body on the cheek and the both of them approached the doors of Hogwarts Castle.

"Here we go."

Dumbledore had not been surprised at Harry's absence from the train. But the sorting had finished, food had been served and the night had been wearing on. It would cause problems if they did not come on this night. Some of his allies in the forbidden forest would give him trouble if he had them standing guard all night for an event that never occurred.

Even as it was, he was unhappy with having to actually play his trump card like this, but the issue of the Barons Black had deteriorated to the point where using Hermione's parents as bait to draw them in, and while it seemed that it was ultimately designed to draw Miss Granger to the school, it was more so designed in such a way to plant certain thoughts in Potter's head.

Thoughts that he would nurture. It was certain that it was no longer an option of breaking them up. His sources had overheard vampires talking about their wedding, but it was perhaps a possibility of having someone look like her after she was disposed of this night.

Then it was just a matter of keeping Harry's rage to a simmer until he was ready to dispose of Voldemort. Dumbledore would personally oversee his training to ensure that his skills were at a level that could stave off Voldemort in a battle until the power that he knows not appeared.

He knew that it would be love. The one thing that Voldemort was incapable of feeling and a powerful tool in and of itself.

He shivered in his seat. It felt unnaturally cold in here all of a sudden.

He was brought out of his conversation with Professor Vector as he looked towards the door of the great hall where a tendril of black smoke came from under the door. Dumbledore sighed with relief.

"Hagrid, would you be so kind as to barricade the doors. It seems we have a fire in the main hall."

As Hagrid stomped down the hallway, Dumbledore gave a wry grin. He had figured that he'd need to beat the boy into submission. He wished there was another way, but now all he could do was see what the young man thought he was doing by setting his castle alight; especially when the place was filled with magically adept children who could easily put out the fires themselves.

Having said that, he mused, perhaps miss Granger had come up with waterproof flames. That would be a more interesting challenge.

Under a bubblehead charm on the other side of the door, Harry nodded to his other half who nodded back.

Hagrid moved to reach for the bar that would barricade the doors. When they both flew inwards, the heavy doors crushing a few seventh year students from Hufflepuff under one door and injuring Hagrid under the other.

Despite the smoke pouring into the room, nobody could see the flames as an enormous black aura visible to everyone present crept into the room like snooping house elves.

As they stepped forward, a layer of sleet formed in front of them, only to be melted before their feet touched the ground and everybody caught within their aura could feel the hate radiating off of them.

Dumbledore's eyes were like a pair of saucers. The raw power rolling off of the couple gave him the chills, how could either of them have possibly have achieved so much power in so little time. The idea that it was achievable made him certain that it was little more than a spectacle. With that in mind, it was rather impressive to fool even him.

"Harry my boy. You missed the train. I'm glad you could join us."

Harry locked eyes with the old wizard and with Hermione on one arm moved forward, the smell of the food almost drawing his mind off of what he was here to do. He had almost forgotten how good it all smelt.

Hermione too looked around and saw food. However, for her, something didn't quite agree with her and the overwhelming amount of cucumber that assaulted her nose made her stomach roil and the next thing she knew, she was throwing up all over some hapless third-year Gryffindor.

Harry rolled his eyes, his black aura fading to a concerned puce.

"Are you alright?" He said quietly to her.

"I'm fine..." She growled as she straightened herself, wandlessly cleaned her face and dress and mustered her dignity. Taking a deep breath, she allowed her eyes to wander across the teacher's tables to where her father sat in what was traditionally the seat of the Defence against the Dark Arts chair and her Mother in the place where McGonagall typically sat.

"Hiring muggles to teach advanced subjects?" Harry asked Dumbledore. "Are you sure they have the right qualifications?"

"They met the qualifications I outlined for them." Dumbledore replied. "That is enough."

"We'll be taking them back if you don't mind." Hermione said looking back at him.

"Are these the two criminals you spoke of Dumbledore?" Hermione's mother asked.

Hermione's heart fell. "You didn't. Mum... It's me. " She dared him to tell her that he had obliviated her parents.

He gave a serene smile that did not deny it.

"Are you planning on starting a fight here Harry?"

"We are here to take your life Albus Dumbledore." Harry told him and readied his wand.

The hairs standing on the back of his neck warned him of a spell coming from behind. His best guess was that it came from the Gryffindor table, yet he did nothing to stop it.

The spell went straight through his chest and he disappeared in a fog of clouds, along with Hermione and left a disembodied voice that was laughing. "Come and get us Dumbledore, we're in the courtyard."

The old man frowned and cast a privacy charm around himself and the other teachers. "It would seem that Mister Potter wants to duel with me, but we must take him alive. The girl is optional. I would like Professors Vector, Trelawney, Hagrid and Mr Granger to take the east exit, Mrs Granger, Flitwick, Snape and Babbling to take the west exit and come around, Pomona, Sinistra will follow me to the courtyard."

"Do you really expect us to fight Albus?" Emma Granger asked with concern laced in her voice.

He dispelled the privacy ward and quietened the chattering students.

"Prefects, please take your charges and stay in your dorms until I say it is safe to come out." His eyes moved to the Gryffindor table. "Miss Weasley, please come with me."

As everybody moved as directed, Snape took the opportunity to place his wand against his Dark Mark.

"How did it go?" Minerva asked as both Harry and Hermione waited for the disorientation to clear.

"Well enough." Harry told her. "They'll be here shortly I'd imagine."

Remus opened up a familiar piece of paper. "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good. Though... I'm not sure that's really apt, given the circumstances."

The lines etched themselves on the paper after a moment and they were able to see a mass of names moving towards the dormitories and an almost predictable list moving towards the exits.

"Ginevra Weasley?" Remus asked. "She's accompanying the headmaster..."

"Oh?" Harry asked with a lifted eyebrow. "Wonder what he's hoping to achieve with that..." It was but another variable to be dealt with.

"How are we running? Is everything ready?"

"Like clockwork master."

"Excellent." Harry felt his heart beating in nervousness. How would this battle go? Who would live, who would die?

Hermione put her hands in his and he realised she was feeling the same and suddenly the nervousness stopped. He knew who would live and survive. He and Hermione both would live with their baby. He could not afford to lose.

"I won't lose. Otherwise I'd be wrong in accepting the responsibility I have." He told her.

They spent a few more moments in silence waiting for the welcoming party. A few moments later, Dumbledore appeared with his team alongside him. Harry grinned in anticipation.

"I was afraid you weren't going to come."

"Come now Harry, aren't you a bit young to be playing these games?"

"You'd be surprised how much a child can grow up in a year. But the games I play are none of your concern. I came here to challenge you to a duel."

Dumbledore chuckled to himself. "My dear boy, it has been but a few months since you challenged me last. My skills have not deteriorated since then. It would be far better for you to surrender yourself to me now or you may get hurt."

Harry shook his head.

"Well then." Dumbledore reached into his robes and called out. "I announce a private duel between Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore!" He pulled out of his robes a glowing ball and threw it into the air.

It was more reaction than anything else that Harry fired a reducto at it, but before it even reached the ball a blinding light enveloped him and he reflexively closed his eyes.

When he opened them, he found himself alone on a field under a bright blue sky. A soft wind blew across the field, causing the grass to shift.

Harry frowned. Wherever he was, it wasn't anywhere near Hermione and that threw a small spanner in the works.

He was confident that the both of them would be able to bring him down by giving him two targets to worry about. Forget the moral ideals of duels being one-on-one; he just wanted the old man dead.

With a thought, Harry tried apparating out, only to find that the sensation didn't even occur, let alone the bouncing that occurred with a anti-apparation ward. Reaching into his armour, he tried his portkey only to find that it too wouldn't activate.

"Dante's duelling sphere." Dumbledore's voice rang from in front of him. "An infinite space created specifically for duels to be uninterrupted the duration of the sphere will last until one or the other is fully incapacitated or dead, however the use of an unforgivable in here would cause the sphere to take your life."

Harry stared at Dumbledore, roughly the space of a Quidditch pitch away from him. Despite the fact that his voice sounded as if he'd been talking over his shoulder.

"Sounds good." Harry replied, trying to sound like it had been his plan all along.

He drew his sword and readied his wand and wondered if he should attempt to give the old man the impression that nothing had changed or if he should just go all out on him.

The Baron shook his head. There was no need to show all his cards at once.

"Take your place you old goat, I'm sure we both have a few surprises for each other." He said and started stepping towards said old goat.

Dumbledore patted his robes, ensuring that a pouch was still there and safe. He would need it shortly.

Hermione meanwhile was pissed. Before she could do anything, Harry had disappeared with naught a trace. Dumbledore had stayed for long enough to mention a few words to Ginny before Hermione unleashed a barrage of lethal spells at the old man who deftly blocked them all before stepping forward and disappearing.

"Lady Potter?" An unvoiced question in McGonagall's face.

"Harry will be back shortly." She told herself. "In the meantime, the plan doesn't change much except that I'm not with Harry this time. We take back my parents."

The others nodded and stepped forwards, wands at the ready.

The teaching faculty looked surprised that this was happening and Vector, Trelawney and Hermione's mother fell to stunners before any of them had a chance to even respond.

The first person to get off a spell however was in fact Daniel Granger, fired directly at Cynwise who dodged the spell awkwardly.

Immediately after that, Ginny fired a cutting curse at Hermione which she only partially blocked and copped a nick to her left forearm.

Hermione looked on in surprise. Her father using spells and Ginny firing off such powerful spells. She reigned in her surprise. Dumbledore's lies ran deeper than she knew. Her parents weren't squibs at all and Ginny had performed at the very least the same ritual Harry and She had done the first time. She would have heard from either Ronald or Dumbledore.

"Select your targets and attack." Hermione called as she picked whom she felt was most dangerous. The other teachers seemed well enough, but it seemed rather appropriate that the two star-crossed should battle.

Knight picked his target and moved straight for Flitwick, both accomplished duellists. Despite the high challenged charms teacher's experience, a lack of use and ever increasing age levelled the playfield against a very active ex-deatheater.

Remus had been chosen to go against Snape if he was present, mainly because a duel with Severus was as much a battle of wits as duelling prowess and nobody present had more dirt on Severus than Remus, though it would be the first time Snape had heard any of it coming from him.

Minerva aimed directly at Pomona Sprout and transfigured the stone beneath her into chains as Professor Vector fired back at her

Cynwise was not expecting to be fighting Sinistra and Hermione's father. While the Dark Lady was not her chosen master she had enough power and wit to make her life very uncomfortable if she accidentally killed him.

Unfortunately for her, Dan Granger was the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and knew exactly what Vampires hated. She dodged a concentrated sunlight spell and as she saw Rubeus Hagrid approaching her, bellowed at the top of her voice "LUNA!"

She dodged another volley of spells before the Pink Dragon appeared from the mountains.

"Well, I'll be blowed." Hagrid said in amazement as a stunner hit him, causing him to shudder. His eyes firmly held onto the Dragon.

Hermione watched long enough to ensure that the battle was under way. She noted with some pride that the teachers were, for the most part, completely untrained and unprepared for this battle and there had been no call to the forbidden forest for allies. It truely seemed that in Dumbledore's opinion it was to be a showdown between Harry and himself, but it was obvious to her that the old man had completely misunderstood their capabilities and intentions.

"What were you hoping to achieve?" Hermione asked the younger Weasley.

"Dumbledore has a ring of Slavery he'll be putting on Harry once the fool has been beaten into submission. After that, I'll be the one to bring out the power Voldemort knows not."

The brunette laughed at her naivety. "You presume that Harry will lose to Dumbledore, but I know for a fact that as long as Harry loves me, he cannot lose. But just in case, I think I'd like to take you out of the equation, after all, only one of us has ever been required to bring forth the Last Dark Lord.

"Come then, you're about to learn that power rituals mean nothing without the skills to use that power." Hermione taunted as she readied her legs to move as needed.

Hermione stayed purely on the defensive, learning her opponent's preferences and skills. She had not been wrong in her assumptions. Ginny was a powerful witch as she was, but she had naught but a fifth-year Defence class and under a year of DA training with which to use her spells, plus perhaps a week of duelling training Hermione decided as she shielded against a distinct blood boiling curse.

She did have to give her one thing however, she was fast and her spells were shattering every protego she put up and as she deflected a reducto as thought ran through her mind. "When I get home tonight, I want pasta. Yeah, pasta."

No life larger than an insect existed on the plain and most were undisturbed until a shot of red or blue sailed overhead, then instinct demanded that they flee.

It seemed completely unreasonable that two wizards would be fighting each other in such a peaceful place, undisturbed since Dumbledore had fought Grindelwald in this exact same place.

Up until this moment, both of the wizards had been toying with each other. Dumbledore was convinced that Harry's aura was nothing more than an illusion that had yet to wear itself off, and the level of magic that Harry was throwing at him was consistent with that assumption.

As such, there was no need to go all out against him.

Still, Dumbledore saw not the need to drag this out too long. He had children to organise, the death of Hermione Granger to organise and a meeting with the wizengamot to get to.

Shielding against another pathetic reducto, Dumbledore rose his wand and cast a spell he had invented in his youth during darker days.

"Glacies Carcer!"

Harry's eyes went wide as a platform of ice spread out from the air in front of Albus at a rapid pace, freezing the ground beneath it.

His only response was to cast the modified protego and shielded himself as the arc flew into the incandescent blue light.

He threw his hands up instinctively however and as he opened his eyes, the platform grew upwards becoming a mountain of ice that very quickly grew over the top of his shield encasing him.

"Well that's a ridiculously over the top spell." He muttered to himself as he dropped his shield.

"INCENDIA CULMEN!" He flicked his hand upwards, causing the cylinder of flames to erupt from the ground around him and instantly melt the prison, unfortunately flooding it with lukewarm water.

He cursed and put a bubblehead charm on his head and started swimming to the top of the mountain, only to find that his pillar had not reached the top.

In annoyance, he pointed his wand at the nearest wall and cast incendio. This had the effect of drilling a hole through the mountain which sucked Harry out of his prison and into the warmer air.

Dumbledore looked on in shock as a spray of water shot Harry out of the mountain who curved down in the air and rather quickly slid down the mountain awkwardly.

Harry pulled himself off of the ground that he rolled across and cast a drying charm on himself.

"I would have thought if you were trying to kill me, you'd do it a lot quicker than via pneumonia." Harry quipped. "Is that the best you've got or is that the level I have to contend with?" He asked his nemesis.

Dumbledore frowned and started to say something when Harry said over the top of him. "It doesn't matter, I don't trust you to tell me the truth anyway." I guess the only way I'll know is by testing you.

He held out his hand and silently cast a spell that caused a large lightning bolt to shoot from his wand at his maximum power which shot into the older man faster than he could possibly even think to shield, the resulting bang left Harry covering his ears and trying to get rid of the ringing.

Dumbledore flew across the landscape and landed a fair distance away yet somehow managed to get himself up off the ground which in turn amazed Harry, who had hoped that the bolt would have cooked him inside out, though his whole body seemed rather shaky.

"How did you get this power?" The geriatric asked.

"That's a bit personal isn't it?" Harry asked with a wry grin. "Where did you get yours from?"

"Very well. I shall make you talk. You will submit to my will!"

Harry fired a diffindo at the raving man who twirled his cloak and avoided the spell. Just.

Dumbledore was looking annoyed at his state of dress and tore away from the cut at his backside, that was catching on his persona, revealing a pair of boxer shorts and an odd pair of jester shoes.

"You've got to be kidding, you wear that in public?" Harry asked, unsure whether to be shocked or amused.

Dumbledore was not one to be angered however and fired a petrificus totalis back at the boy.

Being one of the spells that did not need to be blocked, Harry was stuck fast, but he was able to use a finite easily enough to unstick himself.

The two mages picked up the battle once more, flinging highly dangerous spells at each other, Dumbledore was beginning to feel that the only way he might beat the younger man was to make him lose an arm or a leg as certainly, his spells to make the boy loose consciousness weren't working.

Dumbledore was at a disadvantage with his spells because unlike the younger of the two, he couldn't cast spells designed to kill. Even if the prophecy was false and Harry could be killed by anybody other than Voldemort, The fact remained that only Harry could kill Voldemort.

He paid for his mind wondering in the middle of battle by being stung with a number of needles that slipped past his shields and quickly sidestepped a sword dashing past him and twirled away from the sword as Harry summoned it back to his hands, hoping to impale him from behind.

"There are a number of things I do not understand old man. Why did you cause Peter to turn away from his friends and join Voldemort?" Harry asked him as he attacked once more with both a petrificus totalis and banishing his sword.

"I made Peter go to Voldemort to kick start the prophecy my boy." Dumbledore replied after he reverted from transfiguring himself into water and back.

"Then why did you give it to Voldemort later on then if it was so important that he didn't know?"

"Why do you think?" Dumbledore replied, standing perfectly still, waiting for the sword to return. "If you two were working together, I needed to put a wedge between you both, you are supposed to rid the world of him. He is the last Dark Lord Harry and only you can beat him."

"I honestly don't know where you get this bullshit from." Harry summoned his sword which slipped past Dumbledore who added his own banishing charm to the weapon, causing it to speed up.

Harry darted to one side, making the sword miss and cast a shield to protect himself from an expelliarmus. "Voldemort can't be the Last Dark Lord." Flicking his hands in an inverted 'Z' towards the ground, caused the land to open up like an earthquake towards Dumbledore who levitated himself to avoid falling in.

"He is Harry, and he has Susan Bones. One of the star-crossed."

"Yes, I know." Harry replied. "But I don't care. So what if he has one of the star-crossed; it changes nothing."

"And what would you know of them?"

"Enough that I know that Hermione is one, and she and I together are sharing our greatest happiness. I don't remember the rest of that prophecy but it's not all that important. Your death will mark the start of the Last Dark Lord's rise. I do know one thing else about the prophecy though. You are the white of the monochrome hands, and Voldemort is the black. I shall kill you both."

Dumbledore digested his words, absentmindedly deflecting an unknown purple curse. "You believe you are the last Dark Lord?" It sounded completely absurd. Harry Potter? The Last Dark Lord? It just wasn't possible.

But to be certain they had fought, and Harry was standing unscathed and untired, just short of breath. He was not fatigued from a lack of magic that should well and truly have been used up by now. Perhaps it was true, but if it was... He had to die. But if he did die, what would stop Voldemort from taking over?

He placed his hand on his robe where he had the pouch containing the enslavement ring. It seemed truer now than ever that this ring was the only thing that could save the world from the perpetual rule of a Dark Lord.

"We should finish this, I'm sure my wife is getting worried by now."

Dumbledore steeled his resolve. He would end this soon. The fate of the world was once more upon his shoulders as it had been fifty years ago.

Things were not going so well for the other side. While the fighters were relatively evenly matched, A giant and two wizards were not well matched against a Dragon.

An impressive battle waged between the Ex-transfiguration teacher and the herbology teacher, each using their own brand of magic against each other as McGonagall dodged literal blades of grass while simultaneously making the bucket in the well grow teeth and fly at her.

Minerva knew that this battle was pointless after Emma and Dan were both taken out of the equation and while nobody had thought to revive either of the stunned teachers, Cynwise was not having an easy time subduing Dan Granger who was proving rather adept at fighting the Vampire.

Filius and Knight were both starting to tire each other out, but theirs would be the first battle complete as Knight dodged an expelliarmus and pulled a handgun from his robes and took careful aim and pulled the trigger.

The bullet ricocheted off the walls of Hogwarts and knight looked down in horror as a stray ethereal stake penetrated his bowels and stuck out of his back. His legs crumpling out from under him, he landed hard on the flagstones.

Filius looked on in shock and recovered quickly to help the others in subduing the dragon. With Knight out of the fight, the rest just cascaded from there.

Luna was not one for being subdued. She snapped her jaws at the wizards who were aiming at her eyes.

"Shame to be fightin' with such a beautiful creature as yourself," Hagrid lamented as he let loose another bolt which went straight into her neck. She immediately roared in pain and gave him her full attention, flinging her tail at him, which he caught and yanked, causing her to spin around backwards.

A twinkle caught her eye and her Dragon instincts kicked in as she flapped her wings, the gust of air knocking all but the giant over as she skipped over to the battle where everyone else was and immediately brought her jaws down on the twinkling object which just happened to be Trelawney's upper torso with all her beads and jewellery she normally carried.

"Hagrid! Use this!" Vector conjured a large axe just in front of him.

Hagrid took the axe and ran towards the beast, swinging it at it's leg.

Luna collapsed as her leg was detached from the rest of her body. She lifted her head and roared as Hagrid took another swing, embedding the axe deeply in her sides.

The roar of the dragon caught Cynwise's attention and she quickly dodged another solarium spell to run at the giant. "Don't hurt my playmate!" She screamed at him as she jumped on his back and sank her fangs into his neck and started sucking on him.

Hagrid thrashed, even as his eyes rolled back into his head and a moment later, a solaris flashed across the field to where she was and hit her in the back. "Vampire spawn..." She heard Dan Granger say as she detached herself from the giant and fell to the ground.

He smiled in triumph which was wiped promptly from his face when he found that during the battle, they had been surrounded by werewolves, and not just a couple a huge pack of them.

Cynwise's fall was completely in Hermione's field of vision and she quickly realised that by trying to ensure that she hit Ginny perfectly as if doing so would earn her an O+ in her NEWTs, she had screwed up at protecting her friends.

"Cynwise!" She called out and immediately faced Ginny with a fire in her eyes. She held out her hand and accurately fired three spells in succession. A stunner to Ginny's left, a diffindo to her right which she blocked with a shield that shattered and a reducto that literally caused her to explode.

Ginny Weasley didn't even have time to look surprised all anybody knew is that a spray of blood covered almost everybody present.

"This fight is over." She said menacingly, levelling her wand at Vector and casting a spell that caused her lungs to collapse.

The raw power that rolled off of her made everyone turn and stare at her as if a nundu had strolled into the fight.

The first spell, a stunner, aimed at her father made him drop from the battle like a fly.

The rest of the teachers promptly dropped their wands.

"Minerva, take my parents back to the Void and drop them in prison cells."

McGonagall nodded and started pulling Emma closer to her husband so she could portkey them together. As she pulled her past Knight, her breath hitched and she turned her head to avoid looking at his still body.

"Remus, Fenrir, take our injured to the infirmary." The two werewolves scampered off to tend to their wounded.

Luna took to flight and disappeared from sight with a loud bang and a puff of smoke.

"Did that Dragon just apparate?" Pomona Sprout asked in disbelief, but nobody answered her.

The werewolves closed in tighter around the captives and Hermione looked at the place where the battle had started, where Harry had stood and willed him to come back. "Come on Harry... I want my pasta."

Dumbledore was now attacking with a ferocity that Harry had not expected and was having a hard time keeping up with, it was all he could do to shield himself from the onslaught as the older man chained spell after spell one after the other.

Slowly, Harry was being forced further back towards the ice. Though, the only way he knew that was because his arm hairs were starting to stick up from the cold. He dared not turn around behind him. That would require breaking his concentration on constantly renewing his shield.

He needed a way to end this battle soon. He considered casting a killing curse at him, but he had no doubts that if there was one thing that the bastard hadn't lied about it was this landscape claiming his life for it.

He flicked through his mind for spells that were unblockable with a shield. The earthquake hadn't worked, summoning a golem hadn't worked, petrifying him was as useless as it being used against himself. Then a spell came to his mind.

Did he dare use it? It was so simple, yet had the chance to be the trump he needed, he just needed the right moment.

He waited until he was sure that Dumbledore was looking at him then dropped his shield suddenly, darting to his left, closing his eyes and silently cast Lumos.

Dumbledore screamed as the light burned out his eyes and Harry cast an engorgement spell at the old man with his tongue in mind.

Dumbledore however had instinctively thrown up a shield when he was blinded and in the time it took Harry to cast the blindness counterspell, Dumbledore had sent a bone breaker in the direction Harry was last seen.

The shot was incredibly aimed and would have hit Harry cleanly in the chest if he hadn't turned to cast the engorgement. Instead, the over-powered bone-breaker careened into his right arm, pulverizing it to powder.

Harry screamed in pain, even as he flew through the air, doing a double pirouette back flip and landing on his good arm with a sickening crunch as his body contacted ice.

Dumbledore darted to one side as he cast his own counter-blindness spell and saw that Harry wasn't going to get up from where he was. Neither of his arms were usable for casting spells or using his sword. The fight was his.

He marvelled at the boy's incredible power. Nobody had ever duelled him like that and if not for the premonition Trelawney had given him the day before which prompted him to take a reflex potion he wondered if perhaps he might have died.

Dumbledore tentatively walked towards his ex-charge and looked down upon him.

Harry was screaming in pain and his eyes looked like they were going to bleed the hate they showed. If looks could kill, the older mentor would have exploded like a nuclear weapon as Harry heaved his lungs and frothed saliva as he stared.

Dumbledore frowned and placed his foot on the younger man's left arm causing him to redouble his efforts.

Harry had felt the cruciatus. It was painful. Easily more painful than what he was experiencing at the moment, but the thing about the cruciatus curse was that someone could only hold it on you for a certain amount of time. This was not the case for the pain of broken bones he felt right now which would not go, even if Dumbledore left. The pain would not recede.

Dumbledore sighed wearily and reached into his badly damaged robes to pull out a collar, encrusted with 40 jewels of varying types and a number of runes written around it.

It was hard for Harry to concentrate, harder than he'd thought possible, but he had to acknowledge that whatever Dumbledore had in mind, couldn't be good for him.

'What do I do?' He asked himself. 'I can't move either arm! I can't get up, I can't move!'

As Dumbledore moved to put the collar around his neck, Harry thrashed, causing more pain, but making it difficult for him to get his hands near him and as they got close enough, Harry bit at his hands.

Dumbledore cast a petrificus on him once more which Harry threw off easily as he had before.

A flash appeared before Dumbledore and a small bird swooped him causing him to spin around.

'Release your magic human!' Wilheard commanded.

'And DO WHAT with it!?' Harry demanded back, wondering if the bird was even able to hear him.

Dumbledore started firing spells at the bird.

'Do nothing! Let your intention guide it!'

With nothing else to lose, Harry did just that and magic seemed to splash out of his pours, soaking the ground and causing it to warp into something else.

The ice that it touched melted and crackled like fireworks.

As Dumbledore turned around to see the lake approaching him, he looked stunned to the point that the magic touched his feet.

Half a second later, his leg hairs started to grow uncontrollably. They touched the ground and took root, growing outwards and down, more and more of his hair travelled into a knot and started to hold him fast.

He dropped the collar wish splashed into the magic and spontaneously exploded impaling both Dumbledore and Harry with small bits of shrapnel.

The old man panicked as Harry felt his left arm knit itself together and his right arm seemed to almost inflate and the shrapnel was ejected from Harry's body.

Soon the semi-directed magic started affecting the old goat's beard and arm hairs which too reached the ground until Dumbledore himself was unable to move at all, he was rooted to the ground like a plant. Wandless finite magic did nothing to undo the spell in progress.

After a moment, Harry's pain stopped and he gingerly, tentatively, raised one arm and then the other in bewilderment. "That was incredible."

He slowly pushed himself upwards and as his black fledgling phoenix landed on his shoulder, he summoned his wand and pointed it at Albus Dumbledore who glowered with hate towards the boy which made him grin. It was the first time he had ever seen a face that so perfectly fitted the old man.

"I have a question that's been bothering me ever since I saw that newspaper article."

The old man said nothing.

"I want the honest truth, and I believe I'll know if you're lying to me, so don't bother."

He levelled his wand at the older man. "Are my parents even dead? Did Voldemort really kill them?"

Dumbledore looked defeated. "No Harry. He did not. They were not in the house when Voldemort came, so I hid them." He said it with all the sincerity he could.

Harry's face softened. "Oh Merlin. Thank you..." He said softly.

Dumbledore ventures. "I can take you to them if you wish."

"No..." Harry whispered. "It's enough to know that they're safe." He levelled his wand at the old man and muttered a spell that Hermione had taught him. She had used it as part of his aunt's makeover, but without the whole thing was fine too.

Dumbledore's face went from hopeful to frightened as the hair that anchored him to the ground began intertwining and fattening, becoming scaly and green until after a moment, a snake head pulled itself from the ground.

One thought kept racing in his mind. 'I'm sorry Dolores, I won't be able to contend for your heart any more.'

"Kill the lying son of a bitch." Harry instructed in their own language, which they did. 'That bastard is completely incapable of telling the truth.' Perhaps it was the evidence given to him in the past or the fact that he distinctly remembered his parents coming out of Voldemort's wand years ago. But Harry knew the truth deep down. His parents were no more alive than Dumbledore would be in a few minutes.

The snake that was part of the old man's beard crept up on itself and bit him on the cheek. The old man screamed and as more bit him, the poison started flowing through his body, causing his slow death.

The world around Harry started to crack and it shattered, showing the real world behind it.

Hermione stared at Harry in disbelief as he stood there watching as more and more of his hair became serpentine. She gasped as the man's screams became nothing more than gurgles and was witness to the death of Albus Dumbledore.

A moment later, his hair was nothing more than a mass of snakes, biting and feeding the body that they were attached to, and when they were done with him, they started eating each other as they too were part of him.

"I'm sorry." Harry said softly to her. "I know that you wanted to kill him yourself, but it was about the only way I could get out of that damned thing."

"Oh god Harry, you're safe. I don't care about Dumbledore. You're safe."

"Yeah, I'm safe. I think." He patted the black phoenix on his shoulder and turned to notice that everyone was staring at him.

"Release the teachers." He ordered his werewolves who pulled away.

Harry himself was feeling bruised and battered. He'd need to have his arms checked when he got back. Still, he had other administrative issues to take care of first.

He approached Severus Snape and liked the look of horror on his face. "Dumbledore is dead. Think Voldemort will be happy or pissed?"

Severus snapped his head towards the young man, his once perfect poker face blemished by the blood draining from his face.

"You'll be missing your class tomorrow. I want you to run to your other master and give him a message from the Last Dark Lord. 'You're next.' Go."

Severus quickly edged away from the boy and ran for the gate. Even if he weren't scared of a kid that could bring down the world's most powerful wizard, Voldemort was now the only person he could turn to for safety and he had to hear about this.

"We'll return home now. Let these children grow up under their own merits." He told the teachers.

The werewolves took the hint and started portkeying away from Hogwarts.

As the couple appeared back in their cave, they found the rest of the rogues minus Minerva, but with Fenrir and Pettigrew waiting for them in the study, ready for their debriefing.

Noises indicating that there was another party happening and by the sounds of it, alcohol was not prohibited, the lightweights were already getting loud.

The first bit of news was given by Pettigrew who confirmed that an attack was well under way with Voldemort attacking the ministry, who were not faring well at all and many prisoners were being taken.

It was not unexpected news. Harry went so far as to say that it saved him the burden of ripping them down himself when he finished with Voldemort and put off the discussion until more details were known the following day.

Harry, having been in his battle with Dumbledore and unable to keep a track of what happened was more interested in what happened while he was gone.

Two near fatal injuries and Luna's injuries were about all that was sustained and the general impression was that Dumbledore's goal for the evening was purely to capture Harry no reinforcements were called at all. As was witnessed, there was an attempt on Hermione's life but it was not his main objective otherwise he would have thrown more at them.

Cynwise was lucky that Hagrid had been trying to get her off, if she'd been stationary, it wouldn't have been a miss. A solaris spell would have passed straight through her heart and definitely killed her if it had been 10 centimetres closer.

Luna would survive but she was passed out. A lack of blood wouldn't kill a vampire but the absence of any blood at all would make her healing slow.

Knight on the other hand was not in so good condition, the stake that Cynwise had dodged and found itself embedded in Knight went clean through his spine. The healers said they could heal his body, but he would never walk again.

The news came as a shock to everyone, but hit Hermione the hardest. Out of everybody there, she had hoped that her parents would just give up and join them, not fight back and almost kill two of their closest friends and allies.

Hearing the news, she had broke down crying and fled the cave. After a moment and a curious chirp, Aelred flew to join her and calm her down.

Everyone turned to Harry and asked him to retell what happened in the battle but Harry refused. "We have other more pressing issues to deal with." With that, he got up and left.

Thus far, Dan had been unable to find a way to circumvent the wards that surrounded the prison he was in.

His wife was sitting in silent thought trying to think of a way out of the cave but thus far, neither of them had any success with anything they'd tried.

They had been sitting in the cell for five hours already.

"Take your post outside please." A deep male voice came from outside of their sight.

A moment later, a young man in armour, with black hair and green eyes came down the steps and into the holding cell. They recognised the young man described by Albus as Harry Potter whom they'd last seen battling with their mentor.

"I'm sorry to have kept you both waiting." He said. "My wife and I have been waiting for this moment for almost a year."

"To do what? Torture us?"

"Not at all. Hermione has been chasing the two of you ever since we were told you'd been put in Azkaban."

"Azkaban?" Dan asked confusedly. "I've never been to Azkaban."

"No, that's for certain." Harry told them, thinking of the people he'd delivered to Voldemort. Harry pulled up a chair and sat backwards on it so he could rest his arms on the head. "You were however used as bait and a bargaining chip in order to control your daughter."

"My daughter? My daughter is dead."

"I assure you, she most definitely is not." Harry cut him off before he could open his mouth. "You've been obliviated to make you believe that. Hermione has been fighting for a long time to get you both back. She's been a fiercely devoted daughter." Harry smiled happily as his mind wondered off on a tangent, wondering if he could be such a good father that his kids would be that devoted to him.

"There must be some mistake, she died in my arms!" Emma shouted at him. "My little baby! She died in my arms!"

"Get out." Dan said lowly. "Do not come in here with these lies. My wife does not deserve them."

"No. She deserves her daughter." Harry replied.

"OUT!"

Harry shook his head in annoyance. This was not going to be easy. He turned and left, asking the guards to once more secure the place.

As he wondered back to their home he wondered if there was a way to prove to them that she was their daughter. Hadn't he heard something in school about parental testing? There was a kid at his school that had two guys fighting over being his father.

Hermione was sitting with Cynwise in the makeshift hospital.

The healers were able to do nothing for her as the young woman's body was well adapted to healing on it's own.

When Harry stepped up to the healer looking after the vampire and asked her about paternity testing, she thankfully informed him that it was quite a routine happening in the magical world for the purebloods to ensure there were no 'mudbloods' influencing the line, especially where inheritance was concerned.

The news excited Harry and immediately asked for the proceedings. It would require a potion that was simple to make since all you were doing is a potion that took two sets of blood and if they were unrelated, the bloods would cause a reaction, however a parent-child bloods were typically so similar they were compatible and caused no reaction at all.

Unfortunately, none of the apocatharies nearby would be open and nobody in the void had any 'type G' pre-made potion base free.

It was one of the unavoidable facts of life. Snape would spend numerous years teaching how to make potions from scratch when a lot of them had similar bases that were often pre-prepared in bulk when you got out of school.

With that sorted out, Harry spent a few moments, wishing that Cynwise would open her eyes.

It was a while longer before the other five healers finally stepped out of their operation room and said that they'd done all they could for Knight. But only went as far as telling them that he would live.

When Harry and the others asked if they could see him, the healers told them that 'seeing' was all they could do. They did not want anybody to touch him as his body was being restrained as it healed.

The Silent Knight was breathing shallowly, but without hindrance as he lay on the bed, arms and legs strapped to avoid any movement.

"God I'm sorry..." Harry mumbled as he sat down next to them and allowed himself to wallow in worry for a few hours.

Harry hadn't slept all night, but was very glad for the distraction when the healers finally came around with the completed potion at about 11 in the morning. Hopefully this would shut up Hermione's parents.

If it weren't for who they were, Harry would have murdered them for what Dan had done to Knight.

However, as of a few hours ago, the strings on all the puppets had been released and from now onwards, however people acted would be who they were.

Hermione was hesitant to see her parents after the things they'd said and done but her husband insisted.

They appraised each other between the bars for a moment, before Dan stubbornly said. "She looks nothing like me."

"We'll see won't we." Harry said as he brought forth the three vials containing the potion. "Pick one."

Dan looked appraisingly at the man. "That one."

"Good. Hermione, a little blood in each of these if you would please." He said handing the other two to her.

Harry pushed his sword out of the sheath and rubbed his thumb across the blade enough to make it smear red and then squeezed a few drops into the vial. "This is the control."

He offered his sword to Hermione who did likewise into both of the vials.

"So one of you needs to bleed into both mine and hers, and the other can bleed into just hers. If there is a reaction, then you're not related." He told them as he handed the vial to Emma and poked his sword through the bars, allowing both of her parents to nick themselves and bleed into the vases.

Dan, being the sceptic chose to bleed in both. His vial with Hermione, as expected did nothing. The other vase however started frothing madly.

"Well, I'm not related to you." Harry said with a grin.

"How can I be sure you haven't rigged these?"

Harry rolled his eyes and gestured for the vial that hadn't reacted and put his blood in it, causing the same reaction. "Happy? She's not dead. You were lied to."

"If you really are my daughter... You would have a little star behind your ear, do you not?" Emma asked as if not believing it could possibly be true.

Hermione offered her ear as final proof that had Emma convinced that it really was her little baby grown up. Emma pulled Hermione close and hugged her through the bars.

"If we really were obliviated... Who did it?"

"Albus Dumbledore." Harry said with a stone cold face.

"You jest!" Dan replied but the face didn't change. "I'll kill the bastard!"

"It's too late for that dad..." Hermione replied. "Harry killed him last night."

Dan went pale. "You... How... Dumbledore is..."

"I'll be telling everybody what happened when my two friends you almost killed have recovered." He allowed himself coldly.

"Hey, that was self defence, you attacked us first." He replied angrily, then turned on his daughter. "And where do you get off attacking your own father like that! Didn't I teach you better!?"

"Yes dad, you did." She replied. "Things are a bit different now."

"What's different."

"Well..." She looked nervously at Harry. "You're going to be grandparents."

Dan looked at Harry with daggers in his eyes. "You knocked up my little girl!? Be thankful these bars are here, I'll rip your head off!"

Harry sighed and shook his head in annoyance. "I didn't 'knock her up', she's my wife. I would have asked your permission, but according to the paperwork that we found after breaking into Azkaban to get you out, you were already dead."

Emma put her hand on Dan's shoulder, who was looking like he was about to go apoplectic. "I think you should tell us your stories dear, your father will behave, won't you honey?" She shot him a meaningful glance and he calmed considerably.

It wasn't a warning, or a threat, it was a twitch of the mouth and eye that didn't really seem to mean anything to harry, but it Dan suddenly became a lot more reasonable to deal with.

"Well then, if we're all ready to be reasonable for a bit I will allow you both out for a picnic or something." Harry suggested. "I will give fair warning though." He said as he opened the doors. "Your quarters tonight are completely dependant on your behaviour."

Over lunch, the couple described everything they could about their lives, up until this point which took almost all day.

Harry was happy to hear stories of his beloved's childhood as were her parents who were happy to hear that they had been good parents.

Any doubts that Hermione's past was incorrect or fabricated was nulled by the detail she went into with her stories and the Grangers seemed to get a bit of themselves back as they listened.

Thankfully they were very civil up until the point that Harry and Hermione described the circumstances under which their baby, tentatively named Shannon had been conceived.

Dan thought it was evil that they could possibly force a child to be a part of such a ritual but Harry and Hermione insisted that the baby was normal and as far as they could tell, completely unaffected by it and it wasn't that they were having the baby because of the potion. It really was just killing two birds with one stone.

Harry was assaulted by both of the phoenixes.

'See if I ever cry for you!' Aelred sniped at him in thought.

Hermione laughed at his plight and her smile seemed to placate her parents and there was a companionable silence until Dan brought up Ginny.

"What you did to that girl was evil. It was obvious from your level of ability you could have stunned her."

"I won't accept that from you dad. I'm hazarding a guess you've done work hunting vampires in the past, am I wrong?"

"That's different. They're vampires."

Hermione slapped her head. "Good grief. Hopefully Cynwise won't hold what you did to her against you, then you'll see for yourself that vampires are people too you know, as are werewolves."

"WEREWOLVES!? PEOPLE!?"

The scream echoed through The Void and brought a lot of eyes looking at him.

"Dan!" Emma sounded scandalized as she looked around nervously.

"Did we tell you that most of the people living here are werewolves?" Harry asked with a mischievous grin on his face. He gestured to one of the kids in the distance to come and sit on his lap. Unfortunately for Harry, where one went, the rest went too and the small family were all too soon inundated with Werewolves, Harry introducing them one by one and giving whatever history he could remember on them.

By the time that most of them were introduced, Dan had a very different view on werewolves. The next step would be to get him to change his mind on Vampires.

But Harry was happy to wait until the vampires contacted him before they moved on with that phase.

Until then, it was Harry's plan to prove that despite the fact he was a Dark Lord, he wanted to give the impression he wasn't a totally bad guy.

---

Author's note:

Whew, long time no write. This chapter has honestly been MONTHS in the writing. Issues have come up, university stopped and started again.

Certainly the hardest part of this chapter was reading back through the whole story again and trying to find all the loose ends I need to tie up.

The responses I got to the last chapter certainly were bipolar. Some hated what I'd done, others loved it and it took me a long time before I was able to get past the bad ones and realise that I owed it to my avid readers that I do not let it get to me.

One of my reviews, from madm_05 pointed out that Hermione was getting the raw deal with the ritual they'd done, so I sat and thought long and hard about what I could do for her. I ended up coming to the conclusion that Harry got more from it because it's his duty to protect both mother and child when they are unable to. I had troubles finding a way to put that into the story as it isn't something that can be realised and I didn't really give Hermione room to hypothesise it. My appologies to anyone offended by my reasoning.

This chapter has had an abreviated proof-reading period because I've assignments that I need to finish before tomorrow.

I won't lie to any of you, the next chapter may be a while off. I have to plan for exams and stay ahead of assignments. Then once that's over and done with, I have to choose between the three possible endings I decided upon. I could slap myself silly for creating the idea of a "Last Dark Lord." as I'm looking for a better ending than to blow up earth... -_-;

Thanks to everyone who reviewed and offered their support, this chapter is especially for you guys and girls.

And now! On with the Omake!

--Steven

P.S. bonus points if you can spot the quote from an anime series I blatantly stole :D

Update:

There was a minor tweak in this story at Dumbledore's death. I had originally thought it clear that Dumbledore had lied about Harry's parents being dead when harry said "Kill the lying son of a bitch." But I still had a few review that asked about his parents being alive. I assure you all: Harry's parents died, but it was an opportunity for Dumbledore to exploit and manipulate Harry further.

---

Omake #7: Don't be so overconfident

"We'll see won't we." Harry said as he brought forth the three vials containing the potion. "Pick one."

Dan looked appraisingly at the man. "That one."

"Good. Hermione, a little blood in each of these if you would please." He said handing the other two to her.

Harry pushed his sword out of the sheath and rubbed his thumb across the blade enough to make it smear red and then squeezed a few drops into the vial. "This is the control."

He offered his sword to Hermione who did likewise into both of the vials.

"So one of you needs to bleed into both mine and hers, and the other can bleed into just hers. If there is a reaction, then you're not related." He told them as he handed the vial to Emma and poked his sword through the bars, allowing both of her parents to nick themselves and bleed into the vases.

Dan, being the sceptic chose to bleed in both. His vial with Harry, started frothing madly.

"Well, I'm not related to you." Harry said with a grin.

They all watched in shock as Hermione's too started to froth as well!

"Emma... is there something you need to tell me?" Dan asked dangerously.

Emma quickly put her blood into her vial and watched it start foaming, which made Dan turn on his anger on Harry.

Harry coughed. "Hermione love, I think we have the wrong people..."

"You mean to say that we spent two months planning an attack on Hogwarts for no reason at all!?" Hermione fumed. "What the hell are we going to do with these two impostors!"

"I ain't letting them out! That guy looks PISSED!"