disclaimer:
I'm too tired to put up a humerous disclaimer, so I'll just say thanks to JK for not suing me thus far. I still mean no infringement and I'm just having fun with the whole scenario. Cheers!
Harry sat down on his bed and put his hands to his eyes. He desperately wanted to cry for Neville, but the tears just would not fall.
"It's okay my love." Hermione said putting a hand on Harry's shoulder. "I'm certain we did the right thing for him."
"I really hope so Mione." Harry replied sadly. "I really don't know how I'm going to face the Gryffindors when school starts again."
The Barons Black spent the last days of their holidays divided between learning how to apparate and being drilled on their techniques that they had covered since joining Voldemort.
On their last day, Knight pulled them aside to compliment them. "As students, you're both astounding. I have never in my life seen anybody learn spells as fast as you both do.
"You're both creative and unpredictable. It requires a large encyclopaedia of spells to protect oneself from the both of you, plus there are a few spells that even I have never heard of.
"And then there is your handling of your mission. You must have been very eager to please the Dark Lord for that little stunt you pulled." He told them both.
"He promised us much needed help. I cannot afford to lose favour with him as he would probably change his mind." Hermione replied. "Your opinion of us makes me very happy though."
"It pains me to think that I cannot keep up with either of you at times. I can never seem to figure out how you manage such complete invisibility."
Harry smiled, showing a very faint outline on his mask. "Through a hundred years of meditation and study."
Knight tried to swat him with his hand, but Harry ducked. "You little whelp." He replied fondly.
"Apparently you're to return to Hogwarts on Monday. The Dark Lord has told me that I'm to continue your training at your cave, Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 2am. Give or take raids that is."
"At our cave?" Harry asked worriedly.
"Heh, Wormtail seems to have forgotten where it is though."
The Barons Black shared a look. 'Should we tell him?' They seemed to say.
Harry gave a reluctant nod. "It's not like he can tell anybody else where it is."
Hermione gave a thoughtful nod and whispered it into Knight's ear.
Knight grinned. "You two never cease to amaze me, a fidelius at your age? That works well for me, the Dark Lord has orders for you both to be given in confidence. There would be no place more secure than that."
"Orders?" Harry asked. "We'd better hear them then." He held out the portkey they used to get to their home. After all, there was no way for their trainer to apparate to the place without being able to know what it looked like.
The Knight waved to one of the other trainers down in the field. "I'm heading off for a bit!"
He took hold of the portkey and with a tug of the navel, they were gone.
Albus Dumbledore was not a happy man. It was still another month or so before he'd be able to move properly. The poison that had run through his body had all but paralysed him. They had said that if his Lemon Drops had absorbed another millilitre he would have surely died.
The fact that Fawkes was somehow dead or incapacitated suggested that somewhere, Harry Potter was involved, but the fact was that Harry Potter was incapable of casting the Dark Mark found in his office.
Dumbledore had made sure that the boy would stay to the light. He had used a very special artefact to ensure it.
Even Dumbledore had his doubts however as both Mr Potter and Ms Granger had once again gone missing and were completely untrackable.
He was certain that they were together, and for that, they would need to be punished.
"Albus." Someone called from the door. Dumbledore turned his head and looked at Alastor Moody and Severus Snape who were standing just behind the doorway.
"How are you my old friend?" He asked.
"I'd be better if we weren't delivering bad news."
Dumbledore gestured to his Auror guards that he wanted some time in private.
"Well gentlemen, what do you have to tell me?"
"It would seem that the Dark Lord has a couple of new assassins." Severus informed him.
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "So then Severus, what is so important about these two assassins that you need to bring them to my attention?"
"They brought the head of Augusta Longbottom to the Dark Lord on a silver serving tray. One of them was able to kill a vampire without it even knowing she was behind it."
"She?"
"They're called the Barons Black. They are not Death Eaters as far as I can tell, they wear dementor cloaks and masks that have glowing red eyes. Their hands are young, but that's about all I know about their appearance."
"The Barons Black?" Dumbledore wondered. "What are the chances of it being Harry Potter and Hermione Granger?"
"Unless they've totally flipped, nil. The magical aura that the Barons black put out is large, extending thirty to fifty centimetres from their body. It's obvious to me that they've hit the limit for magical power. You know what Potter's is like.
"The voices don't match, but that's not a given identifier. But the thing that convinces me is their cruelty. I have heard from Lucius Malfoy that the Barons are the murderers of Igor Karkaroff and Percy Weasley. They used some very cruel techniques."
Snape finished his report and looked to Alastor.
"That's not all, it would seem that Mister Longbottom was at the Longbottom Manor when Augusta was killed, we found him with an ethereal stake through his throat in the greenhouse. He was dragged there after being killed however and then the house was utterly destroyed."
"How so?"
"Albus, there was nothing left of the place, just a huge crater in the ground. Despite no reports of a Death Eater raid, you would need fifteen wizards to remove a place from the earth the way they did."
Dumbledore mused and muttered to himself for a moment. "I'd like to rule out the possibility that our missing children are not them, have the order kill Miss Granger on sight."
Severus opened his mouth, stunned. "Kill Miss Granger? How could we perpetuate that without questioning--"
"Obliviate"
"Thank you Alastor," Albus said to him. "We'll remove her from the picture as soon as we see her. That should clear up the issue of whether the troublesome couple in question were involved with my office as well."
"She should have been killed as soon as she was born Albus. You've known from the beginning that you were playing with fire keeping her alive."
"Yes, you've told me that often old friend."
Severus blinked his eyes a few times. Albus and Alastor looked at him. "Are you alright Severus, you've been spacing out."
"It's just a shock... Hermione Granger, killed Augusta Longbottom? I would never have believed her capable of it if you hadn't shown me proof..."
"We'll take care of her Albus." Moody replied and walked out of the room.
"This is your home!?" The Silent Knight spluttered. "I can't believe that Wormtail would have given you such an amazing cave!"
"Pfft, Wormtail gave us just this front room here. There was only a single bed when we first came here. Everything else is extensions."
Knight moved down the corridor and found the large space that made their training hall.
Two days earlier, Harry had an idea for some pillars to hide behind and so the room now sported ten pillars that if one looked up, you could still see the fingernails.
"That's... an interesting use of engorgio..."
"Do you like?" Hermione asked him as she led him towards their study.
"I feel grateful that I've never taunted you with that name otherwise I'm sure my finger would be here somewhere."
The Blacks sat down at one end of the table, Knight on the other. "So, the new mission."
Knight pulled a sheet of paper out of his robes and slid it across the table.
"I can't do some of these people. Remus Lupin, Arthur Weasley, Minerva McGonagall. I still respect many of those people as friends."
"An assassination order on every member of the Order?" Hermione asked. "Where did you get this information?"
"An inside man."
"Snape." Harry replied venomously.
"You knew?"
Harry waved the question off. "It doesn't matter, we're supposed to do it in this order are we?"
"Yes, we're to lure them into a sense of security, while you're taking out Madeye Moody and Hestia Jones, A team of raiders will be going after a random set of Aurors to give the impression we're hunting Aurors, past and new.
"Bellatrix has instructions to kill a few more of the Order's Aurors and I'll be stretching my legs a little too.
"Once we've removed the Order's teeth, we'll see about taking on the more harmless ones, but if you say you won't do a few of them, we'll have to see about swapping a few around."
They talked a little further as to the organisation of the assassinations, dates and places.
Hermione had wanted to do her own research for the assassinations, but as the Knight pointed out, they had to put on a front at Hogwarts. It was far better to have someone looking into it fulltime.
Knight gave them a few pointers, the biggest one was to ensure they realised that Moody was given to them first because he was a pushover compared to Hestia Jones who was a professional hit-witch. She was not the best, but she was far from the worst.
He disapproved of the Barons being given a hit-witch, but the dark lord had insisted upon it. "As a test..." was his comment.
They had two weeks to prepare before the plan would be put into motion. They were to hit both of the aurors in one night. Harry didn't like the timing; there was too much that could go wrong with one hit, let alone two. But Knight has insisted that it needed to look like a blitzkrieg against the aurors. Doing it over two nights would give them the opportunity to fortify themselves.
Reluctantly, Harry accepted the mission, as did his pseudo-wife.
"So, tell me something." Knight asked. "Why are there not any little blacks running around this place?"
If he could have seen the look behind their masks, he would have found cheeks that matched the colour of the mask's eyes.
Harry awoke with a start. He was in his favourite armchair. The feeling was reminiscent of waking up after being obliviated.
"Yay! Dad's awake!" A little mop of black hair called and climbed up on his chair to bounce on his lap.
"James. Don't do that. Get down!" Harry grouched.
A bushy haired brunette dragged a small book in front of him. "Daddy, can you read me my book?"
"In a little bit, let me get something to eat first. He said as he rose from his chair." Twelve children, all with the traits of their mother and father. Harry smiled in love for both them and their mother.
"Where's mum kids?"
"In the kitchen dear!" She called.
Harry grinned and strode purposefully into the kitchen.
His wife was pregnant with his thirteenth child. He didn't know he wanted a large family, but now that he had it, it seemed so right, so perfect.
His eyes moved from her rounded belly to her face, her bright brown eyes and her vibrant red hair.
"Ginny?"
"Is something the matter dear? You sound shocked."
"But-- The kids--"
"What about them? Did Sirius do something again?"
"But they're Hermione's kids, aren't they?"
"Don't start this again Harry love, Hermione died years ago. Every one of those beautiful children are yours and mine. I think I ought to remember, you put me through a lot of pain with each one." She chided while smiling.
Harry couldn't believe his ears.
"Hermione? Dead? I don't understand."
"Yes dear. Why do you get like this every now and then? You'll be fine for a few months and then you'll forget all about me. It's starting to get quite hard to cope with Harry. I wish you'd just forget about her."
Harry shook his head. "No! They've got to be her kids! They've all got her hair, and they like books so much and they don't have the Weasley temper! They've got to be hers!"
Harry thought about what must have happened. Twelve kids running around the lounge room, all of them looked like a piece of Hermione.
"Dumbledore obliviated you and put you in her place didn't he?" He fumed quietly. "Didn't he?!"
"Harry stop it! Stop it! Don't say things like that! Hermione was killed in my fifth year, strangled by Loony Lovegood. You remember that don't you?"
"What?" Harry demanded as he stumbled back. "No--" He couldn't believe that was what happened. "No! You're lying!"
"I'm not lying Harry, why won't you ever believe me!"
"Because it's impossible! I refuse to believe you!" He shouted. "Arag..."
"...gggghhhhh!!!!" Harry sat up straight in his bed.
He had been back to Hogwarts for three days. He seemed to have a different nightmare every night. The same theme, but different situations.
"Harry!" Ron was shouting. "You alright dude? You were having a nightmare. Was it Neville again?"
Harry looked at him, still in shock. "What? Oh, um, yes. Yeah, just-- Go back to sleep Ron-- I don't think I can sleep any more tonight."
Ron nodded, laid back on his bed and fell asleep faster than you could say "Draco is missing a finger."
Things were starting to get heavy in their classes and the only thing that made Harry smile were the nights he'd spent with Hermione and the looks Malfoy gave him whenever he caught Harry staring at the space where aforementioned finger used to be.
Harry set up his charms and reached for the marauder's map. Harry's eyes wandered over to the Ravenclaw tower where Hermione was in the common room.
She was alive and well. He blinked for a moment and noticed that Luna had started to move.
"Mischief managed." He muttered urgently and dumped the map in his trunk, locking it securely.
Harry disillusioned himself and immediately ran towards the Ravenclaw tower.
"Unicorn Tail!" He said urgently to the portrait, who looked rather confused and startled, but opened nevertheless.
He saw Luna speaking to Hermione.
"Everybody knows that you killed Neville." She was saying. "And a little voice told me that I should be the one to make you atone for what you've done."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Hermione replied.
Harry saw a glint from behind Luna's back.
'That's a knife!' A voice screamed in his head.
Harry looked around the room. No Dumbledore around.
He snuck up on Luna and used expelleramus on the knife.
Luna blinked a couple of times and turned to look at the knife. "Huh? There is a knife on the floor. That's rather dangerous." She muttered to herself as she picked it up. As she stood up, Hermione levelled her wand at Luna. "Oh dear... It would appear that someone has made me forget again."
Hermione blinked a couple of times. "Sorry?"
"It happens occasionally. The doctors said I'm a bit slow at creating memories you see." She explained. "I seem to have two memories of this afternoon. In one, I was looking for bark-fingered waldernuts and in the one I just remembered, I was asked to meet someone.
"Come to think of it, I have distinct memories of you being in Gryffindor."
Hermione's lip trembled. "I- I was. For five years."
"I see." Luna gazed as she picked up the knife and placed it on the study table. "If you can tell me that, obviously you remember what nobody else can."
"Dumbledore cannot obliviate me." She replied. "Or Harry either for that matter."
"You have to show me how!" Luna asked animatedly. "I would like very much to keep my own memories."
Hermione tried to smile. She felt horrible for someone who knew they were being obliviated, but was unable to stop it from happening.
"I'm sorry." She replied. "It just happened. But I'll look into it for you. If there is a way to prevent it, I'll find it."
Harry was getting mad. With Hermione's attempted murder it became apparent to him that Dumbledore had seen fit to punish him. Whether or not the old man had managed to figure anything out remained to be seen, but it did not change the fact that Hermione was forced to put alarms on her bed whenever she slept and she had been becoming increasingly paranoid.
After two weeks, Hermione had been unsuccessful at finding a way to reject the effect of an obliviation. Before school had started again, she had spent long hours in Grimmauld place trying to find what went wrong with themselves, but had turned up a blank then too.
Harry had noticed a change in Hermione's mood. He felt that she was slowly starting to become depressed. He assumed that it was on account of her parents, but when he asked her, she just shook her head violently, insisting that nothing was wrong.
They spent every moment they could afford going over the plans they kept in their cave. If everything went well, they would be done in an hour.
Harry sighed and leaned back in his chair. Hermione was scribbling notes on a piece of paper. He assumed that she was working on a spell, but his mind was whirling with 'what if' scenarios to watch her write.
"Do you think I'm ugly?" She asked suddenly, not looking up from the papers.
'Where did that come from?' Harry asked himself. "No! I've never once lied to you when I said that I think you're beautiful."
"We've been together for months Harry, but we've never done anything more than kissing and cuddling."
'more?' Harry thought blankly, his mind struggling to follow one of the scenarios of the assassination going wrong.
Hermione looked up and spoke angrily. "You've never shown any interest in me more than that, we've never made love, you've never really touched me. Merlin Harry, we haven't even discussed the future!"
Harry blushed Weasley red. "To be honest, I've been so focussed on now that I haven't thought much about the future.
"It's not that I don't love you or I think you're ugly, but I'm really scared of destroying what we have."
"Are you afraid that I'd turn you away if you tried to be more intimate." She was exasperated. "Are you a moron Harry Potter?"
Harry gaped at her for a moment and then she sighed.
"I'm sorry Harry, I didn't mean to yell at you, but right now, I just feel like we're going nowhere as a couple!"
Harry nodded. "I'd like to have a future with you too--"
"... I don't just want a future with you Harry, I want a now with you too!" Hermione exclaimed.
Harry dropped his head, feeling ashamed of himself.
"I'm not asking you to make love to me, but I just want to know that we're not at a dead end Harry." Hermione was pleading.
Harry dared to look up at her, her eyes were shimmering with tears that had yet to fall.
"I- I wanted to wait until we were married." Harry reached for his notes in front of them and started shuffling them. "I do really want to be with you Hermione, and I would like to Marry you, but I really want to ask your parents first."
Hermione smiled sadly. "I hope that the Dark Lord gets to our request sooner than later then."
Harry wondered if he was reading between the lines correctly with her last statement.
Hermione sniffed. "We should put on a good show for him don't you think?"
He grinned in response.
Doing an assassination of Madeye moody was not an easy task. He was at home, as he should be at 2 in the morning.
The problem was not killing him as such, it was his foe glasses and other dark detectors. In order to avoid triggering them prematurely, Hermione had calculated that they had to create an anti-apparition field so large that it encompassed a five house radius.
This still would not stop them from triggering off as, as they found out once Harry had broken into the old man's front door.
The door opened and sirens blasted through the house. Harry hoped that being invisible would help him escape from Moody's eye.
The first thing that Hermione did was remove the flu-powder while Harry stalked into Moody's bedroom.
Moody was sleeping through his alarms, which was Harry's first sign that something was wrong.
He warily sent a diffindo towards the sleeping figure. When the curse hit, the figure melted away into a fine mist.
'Shit!' He though to himself as a fist connected with his head. Harry smacked into the wall and struggled to keep himself upright.
"So, Voldemort sent the Barons Black after me did he?" Moody asked him, cancelling Harry's disillusionment charm.
Harry raised his wand, but Moody already had an expelleramus coming towards him, his wand bounced off the floor and rolled under the bed.
Moody tsked and flicked his wand, sticking Harry to the bedroom wall and promptly left to attack the Baroness.
Harry wandlessly removed his bindings and retrieved his wand.
He strode into the lounge room where the lightshow was being held and fired a couple of stunners at Moody who dodged each of them.
"It seems I underestimated you." He grumbled.
"Accio Wand!" Harry called while wordlessly casting a cross-eyed charm.
Madeye didn't even move but evenly looked at Harry, his magical eye no longer spinning.
He didn't have the chance to undo the spell as he had to defend himself from oncoming spells from Hermione.
Madeye fired a spell at Hermione which connected.
Harry knew better than to turn and see if she was alright and continued to fight.
He heard a clank as Hermione's mask fell to the ground.
He turned to look at her face.
Moody stared at her, grinning. "I thought so." He growled. "I had hoped that the Lovegood girl would have killed you off, but as you are the Baroness, I wouldn't be surprised if she was no longer alive."
"You tried to kill her?" Harry asked.
"Albus gave the word to all the Order members. She has two weeks before the order start hunting her down. Harry... Potter."
Harry raised his wand. "You had better be lying or the Magical Law Enforcement is going to find your body smeared from one end of the street to the other." He said with slitted eyes.
"Everybody you know and love is going to come after and kill your muggleborn friend. She should have been killed the moment she was born." Moody replied.
Hermione started throwing even nastier spells, with Harry joining in a split second later.
Harry felt a curse slice through his left bicep and in his distraction, his wand went flying straight into Moody's hand.
Harry blinked and a second later, Hermione's wand joined his.
"You're too young to battle with me and win kids." He told them disgustedly. "I really couldn't care less if you joined Voldemort as long as you kill him." He said to Harry. "However, she has to go."
Harry and Hermione simultaneously let go of their magic, blinding Moody who instinctively put up a shield.
Harry's disembowelment charm cracked the shield enough for Hermione's curse to get through.
Moody stared at them for a brief moment in disbelief.
His body started twitching and a second later, he was flailing uncontrollably. It was a couple of minutes before he collapsed to the ground.
"What was that?" Harry asked her.
"It causes extreme degeneration of the spine." Hermione replied. "Technically he's still alive and can hear and see us. He can't speak of course because by now, he can't cause his lungs to work which gives him about 3 minutes before he starts suffering permanent brain damage."
She leaned down next to him. "Albus Dumbledore has made a huge mistake, as have you." She whispered to him before using the Avada Kedavra on him to make sure nobody would get to him alive.
Hermione's hands were shaking. "The order wants to kill me Baron."
"It will be alright. We'll kill anybody who thinks lightly of us. Why don't you bring down the house, I'm going to make good on my promise."
Hermione nodded without saying a word as Harry used his wand to drag Moody out into the street where he repeated his disembowelment charm and flung him down the street.
Hermione exited the house a few moments later clutching some books Harry assumed were from Moody's bookshelf.
With a loosely aimed destruction spell and a morsmordre, the Barons Black fled the crator of a house and after Hermione dropped off her books, apparated to Hestia Jones' home.
Hestia Jones was waiting in her library with her wand drawn. She noticed the moment that the apparition wards were up that her hunter was drawing close.
Sitting on her table was a teacup, with tea leaves arranged at the bottom of the cup; a picture of the falcon. She had seen the image a few times in her career as a hitwitch. But there was a feeling about tonight. A feeling that perhaps, if she'd had a second cup, it might have shown the grim.
She tapped herself on the head with her wand and disillusioned herself. It would make her harder to aim at until she fired off a shot.
Her door moved slightly and she ducked down.
She had chosen this room for a specific reason, which proved that she had been right in doing so as she fired an anti-disillusionment charm at one of the indents in the carpet and quickly rolled away before they could get in a shot.
She felt a tug at her wand. 'They're trying to summon it.' She mused, but she had a firm grip on her wand. She could hold onto it even if someone hit it directly with an expelleramus.
She poked her head out from around the bookshelf she was behind. Two figures, one invisible with no aura, the other was a dementor like figure. She knew at first glance that it wasn't as a dementor wouldn't be holding a wand and dementors didn't have glowing eyes.
The books next to her flew off the shelf as a spell blasted through the back of it.
'Shit, they can see auras too!' She mused to herself.
She saw a footprint in the carpet to her left and before she could react, her wand hand dropped to the ground.
She screamed in pain, clutching the limb where it had been severed. Her eyes flashed and she unleashed a wave of wandless magic at her perpetrator.
Hermione was surprised that she was capable of it, but then again, she reasoned, it would be reasonable to assume that most hit-wizards and witches were capable of it.
She rose her wand, but Hestia had unleashed another spell which slammed into the Baroness, pushing her back into a bookcase.
Hermione had the wind knocked out of her and she fell to the ground coughing and trying to ignore the pain that flashed across her back from the shelf she'd landed across.
The auror summoned the offending wand and used a congealing spell on her stump to stop the excessive bleeding and spun around to come face to face with the other cloaked figure.
Harry let loose a bludgeoning spell which Hestia dodged, ducking quickly.
He saw her raise her left hand and a puff of smoke appeared from her hand. There was no flash of light coming towards him, just a puff and he felt as if his face had exploded.
The masked figure flew back, pieces of his enchanted porcelain mask dropping to the ground. Hestia approached him, summoning his wand. Despite the enhanced shadows over the face, there was no way she could mistake the scar on the boy's forehead.
She gasped. "H... Harry Potter!"
In her amazed stupor, she failed to hear her window shattering as she was hit by a hex to her right leg.
Her leg buckled and she dropped to one knee. The second robed figure, obviously a female from her view stepped before her, raised her hand and uttered "Accio Teeth". Hestia was propelled forward as her teeth flew from her mouth into the Baroness' hand.
'What a powerful accio!' She thought to herself as she pushed herself up.
"percutio." Hermione held out the teeth in her open hand.
Hestia Jones did not have a moment to think as her own teeth, propelled towards her at the speed of sound shot through her head leaving tooth sized holes littered through her head and upper body.
The hit-witch fell to the ground, dead.
The Silent Knight moved forward and held out his hand to Harry. "Come on Baron, let's finish this job and get the hell out of here."
Harry smiled painfully as he pushed himself up off the wall. He had a head injury which had left a slight bloodstain on the wall, but apart from a splitting headache, he knew he'd live.
As Harry moved forward, he held out his hand and wandlessly repaired his face mask and put it on.
"Hermione, see if she has any books worth grabbing, I'll deposit her body where they'll find it."
Hermione nodded, unfazed by the fact that they'd dropped their pseudonyms. It was obvious that the Silent Knight knew who Harry was by the way he'd looked at him.
Harry levitated the body out the front of the house.
"So you kids usually rummage through a library before leaving?" Knight asked as he peered out the window cautiously.
Hermione picked a book off the shelf. She didn't bother to look at the insides, just grabbed whatever sounded interesting from the title.
"Whatever will give us a better edge. We're obviously not quite good enough to take on a hit-witch without help." She replied bitterly from the shelves.
Knight looked at the shelves. "Hey, Dune, I've always wanted to read that." He said as he pocketed the book.
Hermione shook her head as she took another book from the shelf and exited the room with her teacher following after her.
When they got outside, Knight raised his wand. "Morsmordre!"
Hermione held out her hand and used their trademark obliterating spell which levelled the house and with Hestia's Body hanging from a tree, they left the area for their cave once more, relieved to have gotten out of the conflict with the few wounds they had.
"Why the hell were you following us!?" Hermione screamed at him, dragging her costume off and throwing it to the floor. "We didn't need your help!"
"Baroness, calm down." Harry told her as he took off his own cloak and hung it on the hook.
"But Baron!" She replied. She looked at a large gash in his arm where moody had sliced him. "Oh, you're cut. Where are the bandages?" She grumbled as she started taking care of his wound.
Knight took off his mask and hood, revealing his dark brown hair which was a rare thing to see.
"The Dark Lord asked me to make sure you both came back alive." He told them. "I could have stepped in a moment later, but once she saw who you were Baron, I automatically assumed you wanted to make sure she was dead."
"Is it really better, the fact that you know who I am?" Harry replied, wincing as Hermione wrapped a bandage around his shoulder too tight. "My identity is nothing to flaunt around the Death Eaters."
"And now I know why." Knight replied. "It doesn't matter to me who you are. You're still the Barons Black to me, the most ruthless allies the dark lord has." He turned to Hermione and grinned broadly. "I can't believe you killed her with her own teeth."
Hermione scowled in return. "I have bad dreams at night." She replied, mildly surprising Harry; she'd never told him about them. "In those dreams, I see myself killing the man responsible for my parents these ways."
Knight nodded. "I have similar dreams myself, but I've never brought myself to act upon them."
"I can't sit idly by while my parents sit in jail for being Death Eaters! They're muggles!" Hermione yelled at him, yanking on the bandage once more.
"Yeowch!" Harry screamed.
"Muggle Death Eaters?" Knight choked on his laugh. "That's about the most absurd thing I've heard in years!"
Hermione waved her hand and the bandage stuck to itself.
"Thanks love." Harry replied, smiling tenderly at her.
"We should probably go." Hermione told him, effectively cutting the conversation short. "It would be best if we were seen to be in bed."
"You're not going to report in?" Knight asked them.
"Tell the Dark Lord that we had some fun, thanks for the invitation and we'll be in touch soon."
"I think I'll put it a little differently than that, I don't fancy being at the receiving end of his crucio because of your sense of humour." The older man mused.
Harry smiled at him and reached for their portkey to Hogwarts. "Thanks for your help tonight."
"My pleasure, I couldn't let my star students get themselves killed now." He replied.
The morning after could only be described as pandemonium.
Acting headmistress McGonagall already looked 30 years older (if that was even possible) before she even sat down for breakfast.
She had been up most of the night at Grimmauld Place picking up the pieces that had been left by the attack on the Ministry.
There was little information to be gathered from the houses of the sixty or so dead aurors. They had lost more than half of their force, including all of the aurors who were part of the Order of the Phoenix.
The loss of the order's aurors had caused a loss of morale in the vigilantes. Minerva was having a very hard time keeping things together in Albus' absence.
When the post arrived in the morning to all the kids, she braced herself once more as children started screaming. Some of them were realising that their parents had just been killed. Others were seeing the bigger picture and realising that the ministry was failing. The rest were either in shock, in Slytherin house or involved with the execution.
Harry played his place of silent shock well enough that nobody questioned him.
Ginny sat down next to him as he slowly ate, deep in thought. He was thinking deeply about Hermione's nightmares and how he could help her.
"Are you alright Harry?" She asked putting her hand on Harry's arm tenderly.
Harry was brought out of his thoughts and after looking at Ginny for a second, yanked his arm back violently.
"Harry--?" She asked.
"Sorry, I just--" He needed to get away from her. He was concerned that if anybody stared at him for long enough they'd see his real emotions. "-- I need to go."
"Harry, why won't you let me comfort you? You know that you can talk to me." She said softly as he got up.
"Perhaps one day Ginny, but I've never been the kind to talk to others about my problems." He said as he walked away.
"You'll feel better if you did!" She called.
Harry wished as he exited the hall that he had his broom that he could go flying, but given that nobody had seen fit to return it to him, he put his mind to studying instead and making sure that he wasn't falling too far behind in his classes.
Hermione would probably be quite happy with him doing work voluntarily, he thought to himself as he reached for his transfiguration textbook.
"Hey Harry," Ron's voice interrupted his train of thought.
"Ron, what's up?" He asked his pseudo-friend.
"I wanted your advice on something." He said nervously. "You know that bushy haired Ravenclaw? Hermione's her name."
Harry stopped writing and gave Ron his attention. "I know her, the one with all the answers."
"I'm thinking about asking her out." Ron told him, to Harry's disbelief.
"Forget it!" Harry spat venomously then realised his mistake. "She's far too interested in academics for a boyfriend."
"Oh," Ron said, his face falling. "You think so?"
Harry nodded.
"Not that you're much better, every minute you're not asleep you're studying, you should take a break every now and then and get to know some girls."
"Between school work and planning for the future, I barely have enough time to handle the advances of girls." Harry replied. This was not a conversation he wanted to hold with Ron.
"I know that Ginny has had her eyes set on you for a while, you should give her a chance."
'ugh! As if she's using her brother to try and set us up!' Harry picked up his quill again. "Maybe when we've had exams I'll consider it."
Ron nodded. "I hope you're not planning on spending all your holidays studying."
Harry shook his head. He was planning on spending the Christmas holidays becoming a wizard so powerful he could topple Dumbledore from his throne.
'Dumbledore--' He thought to himself as Ron turned and left. 'He'll be back here soon. I don't doubt that once he returns, he'll invite Hermione up to his office and I'll never see her again after that.'
Harry's heart skipped a couple of beats. He couldn't allow that to happen.
The bell ringing signalled the end of his study period. "Potions," He grumbled to himself. 'Snape as teacher, and Hermione off to one side.' He hated potions.
"Black." Knight was waiting in their cave when they arrived on the Tuesday, one of their days off.
Harry was rather surprised to see him there.
"I was hoping that you'd be here." He said gesturing to a stack of paper on their makeshift table.
"What's this?" Harry asked him as he started thumbing through the papers, one of which was a floor plan showing a great many rooms. "Wait... is this...?"
"Azkaban."
Hermione appeared and pulled out her wand as soon as she realised that there were more people present than just Harry.
"Baroness." Knight greeted. "You know that we really did some damage with the attack on the ministry. They've had to pull half of the aurors off of Azkaban in order to supplement the ones they lost. We're not going to find a better time than this."
"When?" Harry asked excitedly.
"Two weeks from today."
Harry ran and hugged Hermione, swinging her in the air. "We're going to get your parents back Hermione!"
Hermione smiled and released herself so that she could study the material given to them thoroughly.
Author's note:
The last chapter was received as well as I thought it would be. I desperately wanted to change the chapter to something more in-character, but justifying that part of the story is very difficult to do well, that and the fact that it would affect a part of the story and I did not want to ruin the continuity that I'd established already. (Perhaps if I do a v2.0 later...)
This is the last of the pre-written chapters. I was going to post this chapter tomorrow, but it looks like I'll have chapter 07 written earlier than I thought I would. My muse has been very generous. If you're all still with me, I'm glad, and I hope you'll continue to read my story. Review, or don't. It's your choice, I don't mind.
After the next chapter, things will have to go a bit slower I'm afraid as I battle my way through university. I'm trying to keep updates to a week, but thus far that's been a difficult goal to meet. Will I keep going? HELL YES.
So stay tuned, I've got a few shocks in store for you in less than 24 hours.
--Steven