Unofficial Portkey Archive

Wherein a burglary occurs, Harry's group fights a much larger opposing force, the Aurors are caught by surprise, battle is joined, the goblin army arrives, and considerable mayhem ensues.

Thanks once again to betas Mark Gardiner, Shane, and Mathiasgranger.

Disclaimer: I neither own nor claim any other rights in the characters and other concepts created by J.K. Rowling. I make no money, nor do I seek any commercial advantage from this work. As such it constitutes "fair use" as defined in 17 U.S.C. §107.

Chapter 68 - The Battle Of Stonehenge

Hunched over against the cold, a pasty-faced balding man slipped between a mound of rubbish and an abandoned lorry into the ill-lit London alley. Rubbing his hands together, he cursed his luck.

Why had the Dark Lord insisted upon waiting?

Delay had only made his task much more difficult.

Elves were inside the old place now, refurbishing it, eliminating rot and decay. This was no slapdash job by the Order of the Phoenix. No, these elves were professionals at home repair.

Their work made it more and more difficult for him to enter, and move around in, the old house.

Only one of his warrens of narrow tunnels remained, behind the old chunk of concrete that lay at his feet.

Crouched in the darkness of the alleyway, he paused. Finally, it came - the renowned toll of Big Ben by the river, and multiple replies of Muggle fireworks heralding the New Year. The rest of society, Muggle and Wizard alike, would celebrate. This wizard would not be joining them.

He had a job to do, a difficult and dangerous spell to cast.

And woe be to any elf, or anything else, who got in his way.

In an instant, the wizard was no more. Instead, a rat with a silver paw skittered behind the concrete and ducked out of sight.

* * * *

Once Harry soared skyward, he touched his backup wand against his original wand and aimed the Valkyrie downward into the stone circle. Courtesy of the eyes in the back of his head, he could see Death Eaters arrayed near the edges. He had achieved surprise. The Death Eaters' spell fire was directed into the circle, where Harry watched his friends and allies scurry about in groups that distinctly belied their true paltry number.

Time to lay some thunder down. "Puff the Magic Dragon," he roared. A Reductor Curse, cut twenty ways, hit the smooth, grassy surface like an artillery barrage, blasting craters through the thin turf and into the underlying bedrock marl. Now, courtesy of this slice of the Somme transferred to Wiltshire, his pitifully small band had places to hide.

The roar of those reports ringing in his ears, Harry urged his Valkyrie into overdrive. He threw it into a tight loop. G-forces tugged uncomfortably at his Basilisk-skin boots and impaired his vision. As grayed-out sky, and then earth, and then sky again tumbled in front of (and behind) him, he caught a last clear glimpse of the figures in the circle - literally dozens of Hermiones and Moodies rushing into the field of battle.

Lower now than the height of stones ringing the great nemeton, he first checked Ron. With Cho - or whatever she now was - sprawled on the ground nearby, his friend was out of immediate danger, and therefore Luna's responsibility. Protected by the broom's powerful Protego and Furtim magicks, Harry took dead aim on the mass of red and black garbed wizards.

If he were lucky, they would not know what hit them, and he might get a second pass before they understood they were dealing with a broom rider. His grey-out lifted as he peered through the Valkyrie's sighting device.

"Expelliarmus!"

"Stupefy!"

"Regurgito!"

"Reducto!"

"Diffindo!"

"Incarcerous!"

"Osteo Pulvisæ!"

His Valkyrie's triple-core ordnance cut loose with spell after spell, cut multiple ways.

But to survive much longer, Harry could not let the enemy become airborne. The Death Eaters had erected several tents. One of them must be for broom storage. But which one?

The Death Eaters answered Harry's question. After his first fusillade, several broke away. They all directed their wands at the same tent - probably to perform Summoning Charms.

Astride his Valkyrie, turning so sharply that his stabilizer bars vibrated, Harry was faster. "Hellas Infernum!" The instant he brought the broom about, three bursts of Greek fire burst forth, and the tent in question erupted in flame.

High speed forced Harry to duck beneath the trailing end of his own fiery stream. He cut his next spell five ways. "Confringo!" Two of the blasts demolished the already blazing tent and blasted flaming debris in all directions. Harry instinctively ducked. A chunk of fiery flotsam exploded off his shield as he swooshed by, barely ten metres above ground. He had been right. As the burning debris scattered, Harry identified charred remnants of broom twigs.

Just like that, he was beyond them. Again pulling serious Gs, Harry hurtled upwards through the night sky. The ground - lit by fires he had started - reappeared from over Harry's right shoulder as he corkscrewed back into level flight. His stomach muscles unclenched, and Harry breathed deeply, trying to clear his head and restore normal sight.

One objective accomplished. Now all Harry had to do was to keep Voldemort and his minions busy whilst the others rescued Ron.

The rest of the Blasting Curse, and more that followed, tore great holes in the line of Death Eaters and Triads and ripped through other tents staked out behind them. But it was impossible to pick out Voldemort in the chaotic crowd.

Only he could possibly keep Voldemort at bay.

Easily dodging the wild volley of returning curses, Harry made another tight turn and lined up his broomsight for another run. Behind him, the figures still scurried.

Harry needed to engage Voldemort himself - immediately. Briefly, he considered dropping the Furtim Charm and letting the Dark Wizard see him - it would divert him from the rest, Harry thought.

He did not.

Instead, Harry recalled what Hermione had said on the trip down - the difference between heroism and foolhardiness. She had almost begged him not to embark upon the latter.

He decided to concentrate his curses on the area around the big snake. Nagini would not stray far from her master, Harry surmised.

Harry swept through his third pass, hurling more curses when … suddenly Voldemort made it easy for him. A brilliant fan of intense yellow magic - at least eight beams - shot from one spot to several parts of the stone circle, slicing it into sections. Harry had learnt about something similar months before, in Auror training. He had forgotten the spell's name, but each beam was deadly. It effectively cleaved any given area into separate pieces.

From Harry's ærial observation point, those beams converged in one place, and that focal point became Harry's primary target. He fired off another volley of curses and almost immediately was rewarded by tell-tale clangs as his spells battered Voldemort's shield. The yellow beams quivered with the impacts, proving that Harry was having an effect. His confidence swelled….

…Until Voldemort's broad fan of magic did more than jiggle in time with incoming spells.

It jerked upward and shot into the sky - searching for him.

And as eight, ten, or more - G-force-related vision issues precluded an accurate count - beams of deadly yellow magic swept the heavens, sooner or later, probably sooner, one would find him - Furtim or no Furtim.

Harry was not surprised. Anticipating direct engagement, he had deliberately powered his Valkyrie through his "backup" wand - the combination of Sirius' and his father's wands. Just for Voldemort, he kept his original wand, the brother of Voldemort's wand, at the ready.

He drew it now.

Approaching one of the yellow beams, Harry took matters into his own hands. He pirouetted the broom and, using the broomsight for a decidedly unorthodox purpose, set a collision course. Just as he was about to make contact….

"Expelliarmus!"

Harry's ruddy burst of magic crashed into the yellow beam. The two spells vibrated and then merged fully. Harry heard Phoenix song, and knew from hard experience that his and Voldemort's magic had connected. The red and yellow pulses of opposing magic coalesced, and from their melding emerged the brilliant deep gold of Priori Incantatem.

The result differed little from the Little Hangleton graveyard 18 months earlier - with one critical difference: the two opposing wizards were now much, much farther apart….

Like an insect impaled on a pin, the colliding magic all but froze Harry and his broom in place - suspended by the strength of opposing forces. As before, the brilliantly gold magical beam separated and splintered, except sheer distance prevented the spreading threads from doubling back and enveloping the combatants. Instead of a cage, scores of amber beams arced sideways, shooting into infinity. The result resembled a gigantic, golden spider's web in the sky.

Voldemort had to know who he was fighting now - and Harry had accomplished that without compromising his Furtim.

Harry angled his Valkyrie into position and, with his other wand, fired off another flurry of curses - directly at Voldemort. They streaked in tightly parallel to the line of their conjoined spells. "Confringo!" "Transubustantiare inverso!" "Reducto!" With grim satisfaction Harry saw Voldemort having to dodge, as curses crashed all about the Dark wizard and bounced off his shield.

A different sort of flash lit the less precise rear images he was seeing through Luna's necklace. Something had happened.

Abruptly, Voldemort broke his connection and aborted their magical tug of war. His Death Eaters fired a volley of curses, but none came close because Voldemort's unexpected release sent Harry slingshotting upwards into the dark night.

As Harry regained control, he heard a scream. "Hermione!" he gasped. Pulling the Valkyrie into a stall, he flipped it over - but for some reason had trouble locating the ground.

He heard the scream again - now behind him. But the necklace showed nothing.

Harry veered again and … saw nothing. Why the blackout? Since his Voldemort duel had ended his G forces had been mild.

Squinting, he noticed the inferno of the Death Eater tent refracted in his glasses. Could it possibly be raining?

No - tiny ice crystals were frosting his lenses, and growing.

The screaming grew louder, and then the penny dropped.

It was in his mind.

But not….

Dementors! Hundreds of them - swirling all about him. Everything turning inky black. His mother's voice, moments before her death, rang in his ears.

Fighting against enveloping darkness, Harry could not tell which way was up and had no time to check. Dementors swooped in from all sides, attacking his mind. His Valkyrie's shields were useless against a mental assault by soul-sucking vermin allied with Voldemort.

"Suturc!" He incanted. Easing back on his broom whilst keeping his hands properly positioned, Harry gathered his remaining wits about him. He concentrated as strongly as physically possible - to the point of obsession - on the most joyous moment he could recollect.

Not when he first made love with Hermione - not even when she agreed to his amateurish marriage proposal. Harry's fulcrum was his journey to the centre of her mind. She had agreed to return with him, and thus to return to life itself.

That image firmly in place, Harry abandoned the defensive spell and clenched the broomstick's handle as hard as he could. Like St. Elmo's fire, blue-white free magic sparked about his fingertips and (although Harry could not see) crackled at the connections of the Valkyrie's stabiliser bars.

Aiming his free wand at the nearest cluster of Dementors, he roared, "Expecto Patronum!!"

The result was unlike anything Harry ever experienced - and not just his spell's jolting recoil. Prongs emerged, but this Patronus was beyond comparison. Instead of the previous brilliant silvery-white stag, the image that now burst forth was as burnished as the golden lightning Harry had once conjured at Privet Drive. This golden hart was no mere cloudy spectre. If Harry's previous efforts had been corporeal, this version was all-the-way real. It looked, for all the world, solid.

And Prongs was - nothing else could describe it - royally pissed.

Surrounded by a sky full of Dementors, Harry had no time to admire, contemplate, or even consider, his accomplishment. Instinctively, he rolled his Valkyrie into an evasive spiral to evade another cluster of the fœtid creatures.

At the same time, Prongs charged the nearest Dementor, impaling it on twelve-point antlers. The phantom emitted a high-pitched, inhuman shriek, exploded in a cloud of soot, and vanished. In quick succession, four other Dementors met identical fates before Prongs even finished circling Harry. Defenceless before Harry's gold-coloured Patronus, the Dementors fell back in confusion.

As the surrounding shroud broke up, Harry saw other Patronuses fending off the huge flock of Dementors - a silver-white ox, phoenix, and wolverine, all hard at work repulsing the evil creatures. Above them all, Harry's golden blur relentlessly pursued Dementors and destroyed them on contact.

Harry's clearing vision revealed other scenes. Along a wide front, Death Eaters began advancing across the Stonehenge circle - led by a conjured sheet of roiling fire. Harry watched in helpless horror as a surge of flames broke free from the mass, assumed a Manticore's form, and lunged forward towards another fountain of fire that guttered near the centre of the circle.

Hermione's phoenix Patronus was in that area.

Before Harry could react, let alone go charging to the rescue, a cloud of mist enveloped the fiery form, thoroughly extinguishing it.

Any respite was temporary. The rebuff only enraged the conflagration further. More fiery phantasms began budding off.

What was that damn spell she had used? Harry wracked his brain.

It came to him. Drawing himself around to face the inferno, Harry dove straight at the red coal carpet. He again urged maximum effect from the triple-cored Valkyrie, as at the last moment, he pulled its handle up. "Fluvius Azote!" he roared. A torrent of liquid nitrogen spewed forth, dousing the inferno and leaving naught but dark cinders in its hissing wake.

But not for long.

Pivoting again, Harry provided the Death Eaters a taste of their own medicine. "Hellas Infernum!" His own variety of unquenchable fire rained down upon the advancing enemy.

Through the necklace he tried, fruitlessly, to locate Hermione behind him.

Ominously, for the first time, both Harry and his broom showed signs of fatigue. Harry was breathing heavily, as he had during toward the end of his duel with Hermione. With everything that had happened, he had not eaten since lunchtime, and he felt it now. His Valkyrie was also flagging. All the surges of magic had taken their toll. A red warning light flashed, indicating overheating in the left stabiliser.

Harry pulled up. With Voldemort's forces in momentary retreat, he paused to look for Ron.

Nothing. Ron's disappearance was an excellent development.

Harry heard several pops and cracks behind him, merging into a great crash. Through the necklace, he saw that the grandstand packed with Voldemort's Chinese allies had tipped over backwards.

Another excellent development.

Hope surged within him.

It was time for Phase II. `Hermione,' he Legilimenced, focussing on the where she was likely to be within the increasingly battered nemeton. `Ron's nowhere in sight. Luna must have him. Let's go. I'm going to give the….'

From below and behind, Harry never saw it coming. Some sort of Heat Seeking Jinx crashed into the Valkyrie's shields and lit him up like a phoenix on burning day.

"Eeyaah!"

He searched frantically for some sort of dousing spell. But it was too late….

Right behind streaked at least five unblockable Avada Kedavras - all launched at his now visible position. Harry pushed his broomstick into a power dive, but at that moment that the curses vanished … dropped from sight, just as if….

Without warning, the silhouette of a gigantic winged creature lit up in ghastly green light….

But Harry's blind dive took him directly into the path of more deadly incoming spellfire - a trailing curse left unblocked by whatever had just sacrificed itself.

At the last instant, purely by instinct Harry rolled the broom. He heard - and felt - a jolting pressure wave as the curse blasted his left stabiliser. Shrapnel torn loose from the impact ripped into his lower leg. Although Basilisk hide was virtually impenetrable, the flesh that lay beneath was quite compressible.

Harry screamed - this time in pain.

* * * *

"Multiplicitus," Hermione incanted as she ran headlong into yet another of Harry's battles from which she knew, all too well, she might not emerge alive.

She heard praise in Moody's gravelly voice beside her. "Capital idea, Granger. Multipli…."

She never heard him finish.

At that moment the ground in front of her erupted. Over a dozen powerful Reductors transformed the smooth, well-maintained turf into a pitted and cratered wasteland.

That seemed like another capital idea - until, "Protego physica!" Hermione was almost upended by the shower of dirt, shattered rock, and bits of grass the explosions unleashed.

At least she, Moody, and accompanying goblins now had cover.

They needed it.

Curses were flying thickly. Several, including at least one Unforgivable, passed within a metre of Hermione as she dove head first into the nearest, still smoking pit Harry had blasted in the marl bedrock.

Catching her breath, she clutched the Suicide Spyder she had wheedled from George. She saw light above her. Distinctive blood-red crossing patterns of International Auror Assist signals glowed overhead. Moody had called for help from the nearby Auror station.

The ground shook again. Explosions tore through the Death Eater ranks to her left. Hermione gathered herself and darted for the next impromptu foxhole.

Her first mission was to prevent the odds they faced from lengthening further. She had to destroy the portal that was bringing the Triad wizards to Stonehenge.

She did reach her destination.

A blindingly yellow chain shot across Hermione's intended path, stopping her short. It crashed into one of the trilithons and stuck fast, vibrating with an evil hum. Completely exposed to Death Eater spellfire, and with no other choice, Hermione lunged for the turf, keeping only the Spyder off the ground.

She winced at a loud, angry buzzing sound. One of their number had just learnt the hard way that these chains were fatal to the touch. Aurors - and presumably Death Eaters - used them to divide and conquer opponents. With a momentary twinge of guilt, Hermione found herself desperately wishing that the casualty was a goblin. Everyone else on the mission she knew too well….

She had to do something. Here, she was a sitting (actually lying) Diricawl. The Auror lesson compared these chains to Muggle electrical fences. Maybe….

"Liliaceous," she spelled. A three-metre stretch of chain Transfigured into a floral lei. The magic maintaining the chain instantly shorted out. It vanished.

Before Voldemort, or whoever, could recast the curse, Hermione charged through the gap and hurled herself into the next crevasse.

Only one glaring chain separated her from her goal. She was ready to cast again when, in a trice, the target jumped skyward and out of her way. At almost the same moment, Hermione saw the portal glow and sputter with sparks - almost a huge Goblet of Fire replica spitting out Harry's name.

But instead of a parchment bit, five wizards clad in red and white patterned robes emerged.

These reinforcements had no chance. "Impedimenta!" "Glacialis terra!" "Apis!" Spells erupted from her wand in quick succession.

Hermione was not alone. She heard Moody hurling curses, and what she supposed were goblin war cries. Their bodies exploding in blood, the unfortunate Triads slumped and fell to the ground, with nary a chance to draw their wands.

Even more unfortunately, from Hermione's perspective, her spellfire betrayed her position. A deadly rain of curses, including multiple Avada Kedavras, pelted the vicinity - ripping more holes in the turf and shattering ancient stone.

Whatever her other strengths, Hermione threw like a girl. She had to use magic and had only one shot. Her current angle was almost impossible, and she needed to get considerably closer. But the portal was a good fifteen metres away, with no possible respite from the Death Eater fusillade - nothing save bodies newly strewn across the landscape.

That would have to do.

Hermione cut a Mobilicorpus five ways. Working quickly, she stacked the bodies - alive or dead, she did not care - like cordwood.

"Accio!" The five-corpse-high stack of bodies parked itself next to her. This was it. Hermione set the Suicide Spyder to explode on impact. Shielded by her enemies' bodies, she made for the portal itself.

Again the sky lit up, but Hermione was far too focussed to pay it any mind.

Racing, her heart in her throat, she could hear dull thuds as Death Eater curses crashed into her fleshy barricade. The Spyder clicked like mad as she closed on her goal.

But one of her opponents either got smart or got lucky - a deadly green Killing Curse shot underneath her protection and came within centimetres of sending her to the same fate as Achilles. It blew apart the ground beneath Hermione, hurling her into the air.

Shocked at abruptly being airborne, Hermione lost her grip on the Suicide Spyder.

If that landed nearby, she could never survive the resultant explosion.

Careening through the air, Hermione had only one option. Her wrist holster meant her wand was always at the ready. "Depulso!"

Hermione's true aim surprised even herself. Her Banishing Charm hit the Spyder flush, and sent it whirling away - straight into the portal's maw.

A tremendous explosion ensued, although Hermione barely heard as a hard landing left her breathless. Seeing stars, she thought she also heard screams. The bomb Hermione hurled irreparably disrupted whatever magic animated the portal. Orange and crimson flames shot fully ten metres into the air - accompanied by the nauseating and all-too-familiar smell of burning flesh.

At once amazed and repulsed at her feat, Hermione crawled several metres - behind a large lintel stone that had fallen from its time-immemorial perch. Gasping for breath, she fought to convince herself that all this killing was for the greater good.

Part one accomplished, Hermione's next task was to hold the Death Eaters and the Triads at bay until Harry signalled that Ron had been rescued.

After that, she had to get the hell out any way she could.

Trading curses with the Death Eaters around Voldemort - Hermione watched with no little awe as Harry bombarded them from the air - from the corner of her eye, she also kept watch for the thousand or more Chinese wizards that Neville, George, and Jazzy were tasked with stopping.

If they broke through, she was a goner. She had no chance against those numbers.

They were not breaking through. That was good.

Something else was amiss.

It was getting very cold that first night of 1997. Too cold.

Dementors!

Suddenly all about; their rasping, laboured breaths were appallingly evident. Their numbers were too many to count - far more than she had ever seen in one place. Compared to this crowd, the pack that nearly killed her at the end of third year could not even raise a quorum.

Nor was Hermione the same. She was older, and more importantly, incomparably better trained.

The night of her third-year Dementor encounter was also, whilst riding on Buckbeak, when she first grasped her true feelings for Harry. Now she knew that Harry shared those feelings….

That was exactly what she needed.

"Expecto Patronum!"

The tip of Hermione's wand practically sizzled as, brilliantly white, her rejuvenated phoenix Patronus burst forth, flying at full speed. Its dizzying path of concentric circles forced the Dementors back.

Still, they were too many. Even her vigourous Patronus could not restore the stars and the moon.

Hermione felt trapped in an underground cavern.

Would the Dementors make way for an attack by their Death Eater allies?

By the light of her Patronus, and with a wary eye on the circling Dementors, Hermione fortified her position as best she could by converting stone fragments into logs - just as when she had duelled Harry.

That was for sport; this was for keeps.

Suddenly a streak of - something - gold rent the surrounding gloom. Never had Hermione seen Dementors act utterly terrified.

In an instant the golden streak had passed, and hurtled away, in hot pursuit of its prey.

The Dementors retreated like a spent cloudbank, but Death Eaters brought forth another, even more dire, threat.

A curtain of fire - twisting, boiling gouts of flame leapt into the sky. This latest assault called forth awful memories of the firestorm that occasioned Harry's kidnapping.

This time, she could neither outrun nor outfly it.

Suddenly, a wooden redoubt seemed spectacularly inappropriate.

This was no ordinary fire. Directly in front, a tongue of flame mutated, taking the blazing form of a Manticore.

"Fiendfyre!" Hermione gasped, correctly discerning what she faced.

As the burning Manticore broke loose to hurl itself upon her, Hermione remembered how, once before, she quenched what had seemed unquenchable.

"Fluvius Azote!" she cried. A blast of liquid nitrogen spewed from her wand. It swept forward, its intense cold generating a fogbank to match the fiery beast.

The spell's combined boreal frigidity and utter incombustibility more than matched the Fiendfyre's initial advance. The conflagrant Manticore guttered to a few expiring cinders.

This fire, however, had a life of its own. Instead of a single flaming monster, three more budded off - a bunyip, a kraken, and what appeared to be coalescing into a nundu.

How many times could Hermione repeat her spellwork before being overwhelmed?

Determined not to go down without a fight, she raised her wand.

Before she could repeat the magic, she heard a booming echo.

From high in the sky - from Harry's concealed broom - fell a huge torrent of the same liquefied gas. The Fiendfyre, like the Dementors before it, passed from being a threat to being an example.

The battle's goal devolved into preventing the Death Eaters from advancing until Harry, from his aerial vantage, determined that Ron had been spirited away. Then would come his signal to retreat.

Grimly, Hermione contributed her share to the curses flying back and forth. In addition to Harry's overhead volleys, her field of fire was supported by Moody - who, shortly before, had loudly announced his successful destruction of the last anti-Apparition ward generators - and two, maybe three, goblins. All the while, a part of Hermione's mind fervently hoped that Neville, with Jazzy's questionable help, could keep at bay the throng of Chinese wizards behind her.

A thrill of hope jolted Hermione when, finally, Harry contacted her. `Ron's nowhere in sight. Luna must have him. Let's go. I'm going to give the…. Eeyaah!'

Hearing his scream, Hermione's eyes shot skyward. She saw Harry for the first time since she sprinted into the circle. A half dozen evil green Killing Curses had crashed into the silhouette of something unidentifiable, but very large.

But reflected in the light was something smaller - diving - into the path of yet another AK. A last instant course correction ….

It was not quite enough. Her own scream tore from Hermione's throat as a chartreuse explosion erupted at the intersection of Harry's path and the lowest of the curses - almost directly overhead. At any moment she expected to hear the sickening of Harry's lifeless corpse falling to earth.

It was over. She could not even breathe….

The broken body of some leather-winged creature, as big as the Knight Bus, smashed into the ground near the centre of the stone circle.

The lesser sound of a Boy Who No Longer Lived hitting the turf never came.

Somehow, miraculously, he must have survived - either by skill or the grace of the Felix Felicis Potion.

But … she received no evacuation order. Harry must be injured somehow, she thought. He could not give the sign because the Death Eaters would spot him….

She had to do it.

Hermione stepped forward and raised her wand to the sky to signal everyone - whoever was left alive - to get out any way possible.

Her own incantation mixed with foreign-sounding words.

"Aieeee," she screamed as a mulberry-hued bolt of light scored her upraised wrist, just above the sleeve of her Basilisk hide doublet. Her hand instantly went numb, and Hermione dropped her wand. She barely noticed as the spell zagged back and slashed harmlessly across her armoured chest.

"Avada Kedavra!" she heard. Unable to react, she fully expected to die, but the spell went low and instead blasted apart one side of her little log fort.

"Expelliarmus!" The latest spell threw Hermione backwards until she collided painfully with the back wall of her fort.

Semi-conscious and unable to move, or even feel, her wand hand, Hermione could only gawk as a hooded Death Eater tromped into view. A bright light blinded her.

"Well, well, well … Mudblood Granger," a low, strongly accented voice rumbled. "Potter's jizz jar…. No wand, I see. Incarcerous!"

She felt tight bindings encircling her arms.

"Hah! The Dark Lord will be much pleased." As the Death Eater removed his mask, his blindingly bright wandlight briefly left her face.

Antonin Dolohov!

"I'd hoped to meet you tonight," he half sneered. "But someone crashed our party, and I thought I'd have to postpone our little date…."

Madness danced in his eyes - and in his harsh laughter - as he raised his wand again. Hermione could damn well predict what he would do next. She cupped the one hand that still responded….

`Suturc,' she incanted silently.

"Crucio!" Dolohov roared.

Even Basilisk hide offered no protection from the Unforgivable Curse. Hermione's back arched as it struck her. With only one operable hand, whilst the protective spell worked, it could not completely protect her. Her right arm and leg felt as if dipped in boiling acid. She screamed and thrashed. All she could see was Dolohov's twisted grimace as he laughed whilst torturing her.

Nor could she Legilimence Harry - assuming he could hear. Just to maintain Suturc's protection of her brain and perhaps two-thirds of her body required every ounce of concentration that the injured girl could muster.

Fwump!

Both Dolohov's curse and his laughter abruptly stopped as, to Hermione's shock, something like a saw blade ripped through his left shoulder, nearly taking it off. Bits of the Death Eater's blood and bone splattered her.

Dolohov staggered unsteadily as blood gushed from his wound. Unfortunately for Hermione, he was right-wanded. "He wants … you dead," Dolohov groaned as he raised his wand once more. "Avada … Ked…."

With her mind and her entire left side protected by Suturc, Hermione was quicker than the gravely injured Death Eater.

"Expelliarmus!" In a rude gesture, she pointed her left hand's middle finger at the Death Eater and hoped for the best.

She got it. Shak's wandless magic training paid off with her life. The blast of her magic overcame the already weakened Dolohov. He careened backward as his wand spiralled into her left hand like a railroad spike drawn to an electromagnet.

A circular blade just missed the man's collapsing body as Hermione incanted, first "Petrificus Totalus," to incapacitate the Death Eater, and then "Finite," to free herself.

Further movement came from that same area, along with more loud reports in the background. Hermione wearily prepared for another go, but her off-hand retained little strength and her right hand was useless.

Instead, a goblin hurdled both the remains of the log fortress and the downed Death Eater to land beside her. "Savini, my humblest apologies," he said with a bow. "To help, allow me. Like him … will to the death you defend. Stop red wizards."

Perhaps "him" meant Harry, but Hermione had more immediate problems…. She could crawl (to stand risked being a target), but her bluish and swollen wand hand supported no weight. She used a couple Healing Charms, but nothing she knew had any noticeable effect on spell damage from the Dark Tibetan spell.

"My … my wand…," she pointed to where it had fallen - before Dolohov's Disarming spell. More explosions rumbled behind them.

The goblin interrupted an incantation he had begun performing in Gobbledygook. He immediately retrieved Hermione's wand. Bowing low, he handed it to her. "Savini."

The goblin was missing a finger. "Roxtar," Hermione responded.

His eyes lit up; he had not expected her recognition.

With her left hand, Hermione pressed her wand against her injured right hand, and fired off a volley of green sparks.

"Assist, may I?" Roxtar asked.

"Please," Hermione consented.

Abruptly, Harry's frantic voice sounded in her head, `Hermione, what was that for? Why didn't you leave on my signal? Just … get out! I can't hold off the Triads much longer! Neville's down! Get out!'

Oblivious to the unspoken conversation, Roxtar produced some sort of roll of bandages from a kitbag. He began binding Hermione's wand to her incapacitated wand hand.

`Harry, I don't know if I can,' Hermione told him frankly. `I'm hurt and Roxtar is with me. He promises to stay. Save yourself … you know why.'

`No way in hell, Hermione! Where are you?' Harry Legilimenced back. `I'm coming…. What's that?'

"Ulululululu…."

At once, the night air filled with a crescendo of trilling shrieks - produced by a multitude of voices. The sound came from the direction of the explosions.

The moment he heard the sound, Roxtar was on his feet. He let out a responsive shout. "Ulululululu…."

"Now, win we," he told Hermione, the toothy grimace that passed for a goblin smile filling his face.

The goblin army had arrived.

* * * *

"Stupefy!" Luna shouted before beginning her sprint. Her angry crimson Stunner slammed into the nascent succubus just as she bent over Ron to administer a horrific kiss intended to commence a Dark dance of death.

Cho flopped forward, bounced off the stone to which Ron was shackled, fell to the ground, and lay still. Watching with satisfaction, Luna threw on Harry's Invisibility Cloak and ran as fast as she could towards Ron.

Unlike the others, busy blowing things up in the great nemeton - a necessary sacrilege under the circumstances - Luna's mission demanded next to no magic at all. Any spell would likely be noticed by nearby Death Eaters. Should they detect her, Luna was certainly overmatched.

Luna both heard and felt the explosions behind her. Their impact shook the very ground. Harry could be awesome when he pushed himself, and he was obviously pushing himself to the limit.

Charging forward, Luna saw more explosions - now thinning the ranks of the Death Eaters and Triads gathered nearly dead ahead.

She was within a dozen metres of Ron when a golden bolt of - something - came almost straight at her from off to her right. Luna flung herself to the ground to avoid a flying chain, bright enough to hurt her eyes. It flashed by, missing her by less than two metres.

Oh, Merlin, she must have been seen! Luna froze, awaiting more spellfire.

None followed. Cautiously, she rose to her feet.

Another identical, incandescently yellow chain angled off well to her left.

The Death Eaters' attention was elsewhere - presumably on Harry.

Luna resumed her advance towards Ron, her way unimpeded. Providentially, the chains effectively blocked anyone on either side from trying to stop her.

She slid past Cho's crumpled body. Revenge would have been so satisfying, but now was not the time. The would-be agent of Ron's death posed no threat. Even her awful fingernails had been shattered.

Luna dipped behind the stone altar. She was near enough to hear Ron's muffled sounds of panic as explosions sounded and curses flashed overhead.

She checked - two shackles on this side. Cautiously, she crept around to assess the other side - the side exposed to the Death Eaters. Just as she did, all the yellow chains crossing the field broke free and rose rapidly overhead.

Although concealed by Harry's Cloak, Luna worried about one of the masked Death Eaters staring at her. She shrunk back, and just as a huge golden spider web formation unfolded across the sky, she heard a curse hurled in her direction.

"Sectumsempra." An arc of silver magic lashed at the block of stone an instant after Luna had dived behind it for shelter.

Could that one see through an Invisibility Cloak?

She cowered, unsure, until additional flashes of spellfire, punctuated by loud noises, led her to peer around the stone. A vividly gold strand of magic extended from the wand of a tall, thin wizard - it could only be Voldemort. He wielded a shield to deflect a withering array of incoming spells. Chaos was all about him. Sparks flew. Ricochets churned up the dirt and hurled bodies through the air.

Even assuming that Death Eater had detected her, he or she was certainly otherwise occupied now. Under the Cloak and with Moody's penknife in her hand, Luna crept around to pick the locks on Ron's manacles.

Not necessary.

The chains were neatly split. Some spell - probably the one hurled at her - had somehow cleaved them cleanly in two.

Thanking the Felix Felicis, Luna crawled back to the sheltered side and began picking the intact locks. Concentration was difficult - her frigid fingers felt fat and unwieldy. Ron moaned. She thought she heard her father's scream, followed by two noisy blasts….

For some reason, Luna looked up. Two gigantic Dementors hovered only a couple metres overhead. Luna had never been so close to those foul creatures in her life - well, maybe once.

They ignored her, feeding instead on Ron. He thrashed spasmodically. Half-choked screams struggled to emerge from his throat. The Dementors were positively gorging on the poor boy's terror.

Luna could cast a Patronus, but only at the risk of giving herself away. She still had one locked manacle left. Being an empath, however, gave her another option. Maybe she could drive them away in a different fashion.

Reaching up, Luna grabbed Ron by the ankle. She willed that he feel positive emotions - hope, rescue, redemption … love. She risked giving herself away in another sense, but c'est la vie.

Before she could tell if her efforts were succeeding, a huge, painfully bright fireball of bright gold light whizzed by so closely that she could feel the breeze. It sounded like an enormous flock of mosquitoes had descended, the whine was so loud.

With two noisy blasts, just like that, the Dementors were gone, leaving behind only bits of soot.

No longer anywhere near as cold, Luna made quick work of Ron's remaining bindings.

She tossed the Invisibility Cloak over him.

"Ronald … come … now … rescuing you," she whispered urgently in his ear.

The redhead's skin was so pale every freckle looked black. His face was bloody from Cho's deep scratches, and his blue eyes were wide, wild, and unseeing. "Dead…? Angel…?" he mumbled.

"This way…," she tried again. But her voice trailed off as she heard the distinctive clicks close by.

She could identify it was without seeing it. George had discussed his little toys whilst winding them up.

"Ronald, come here," she grunted, grabbing him with both arms and yanking - hard.

"Hey … what…?" he squealed as toppled over the side. As Ron fell heavily onto Luna, the entire area shook. The Suicide Spyder blew itself up - shredding to pieces two Disillusioned Death Eaters whose approach Luna had neglected to notice.

The explosion's force cracked the altar in three places and blew its dolerite capstone clean away. That barely cleared Ron and Luna before landing with a dull thump a couple of metres away.

"No wonder you couldn't move," Luna hissed as she crawled out from under him. "Completely starkers and freezing half to death…. Ooh! Except for there…."

Ron was still fully under the effects of Snape's malignant injection.

Still not willing to risk using magic, Luna grappled him onto her shoulders. "Have to get you … out of here," she whispered, as she tried manœuvring the much larger boy into a fireman's carry position. At the same time she struggled to keep them both hidden by the Invisibility Cloak.

"H-H-Harry…?" Ron gurgled, his teeth chattering. "Help me…."

"No, Luna," she sighed. Finally, she finally managed to manhandle him into a carriable position.

"Loooooney," he moaned. "'M c-c-cold…."

"Uhnnnh," Luna exhaled as she staggered to her feet, hunched over, with Ron's fourteen-stone dead weight across her back. As she began labouring across open ground, thankfully someone (she assumed Harry) launched another barrage at the people responsible for this.

Not so thankfully, carrying Ron in this fashion was not only tiring, but very distracting. If she moved her head at all to her left, her face was flush against a very prominent, and even more inappropriate, part of Ronald Weasley's anatomy. If she turned the other way, her nose and cheek would be bloodied from the fresh gashes the succubus had gouged in Ron's pallid features.

"Let's get you … out of here … so we can warm you up," Luna panted as she lumbered slowly along.

"Loooooney … waaarrrmm."

It seemed like forever, but finally she moved him far enough away to chance using magic. She set him down. "Mobilicorpus."

Looking back, she saw a vivid, yellow-green explosion erupt over the nemeton.

"Great Druantia," she sighed. "There must be some way to stop this."

* * * *

"Are you ready?" she pointedly asked the infuriating redhead, having already mounted the broom. "We don't have all night."

"Almost," he grunted. "There…." The last of George's Suicide Spyders scuttled away, clicking softly.

Jazzy felt the broom dip as he shimmied on behind her. "Ready. Let's see what you've got," he almost taunted her.

She kicked off the Valkyrie with such force that, but for his seatbelt, George would have gone arse over tit.

"Whoa, easy there, I'm on your side," George complained.

"We'll see about that," Jazzy grumbled. She made a wide turn to line up with the grandstands.

"What?"

"Nothing," Jazzy growled. "You've got those stone-eating balloons of yours at the ready?"

"Locked and loaded," George replied jauntily. "There's a full gross in this bag."

Then George fired off a spell, "Earschplittenloudenboomer!"

"What the hell was that for?" Jazzy barked at him. "I thought we'd agreed - magical silence until we're on them."

"Nothing wrong with a little Caterwauling Charm as a diversion," George shot back at her. "Loosen up, will you?"

Jazzy lined up the Valkyrie for their first pass. As it was Hermione's broom, all she could work with were speed and manœuvre. In maintenance mode, neither the broom's stealth, nor its protective charms, nor even its broomsight, was operational.

"We're coming in low, hot … and thanks to you, loud," she told George. "Fire away as you like." Silently, she hoped that her former Gryffindor housemate was as good with that balloon launcher as he bragged.

Goosing the Valkyrie to full power, Jazzy brought it in less than ten metres from the back of the grandstands. She could see Neville's handiwork. All entrances were blocked by huge, and thoroughly thorny, Sentinel Rosebushes. Ordinarily, they stopped knights in shining armour well enough; perhaps they could also stop Triads.

Streaking past the rear of the stands, she could barely hear George's grunts over the Caterwauling Charm as he hurled the alkahest balloons with his scoop.

They completed the pass without a single opposing spell hitting them, or even coming particularly close.

But George's accuracy had not exactly set the world on fire. The grandstands still stood - a bit droopy in spots - but essentially intact.

"You told us you knew how to use that thing!" a furious Jazzy upbraided him.

"I damn well do!" George snarked back, as if his manhood were being questioned. "Just not whilst going so bloody fast that I can barely see."

"All right … another run, then," she challenged him. "I'll try to take it slower."

"I'm with you, Madame Butterfly," George smirked.

She wanted to dump him off the broom.

Aiming their second pass, she could see the Triads becoming much better organised. `Must have gotten their orders,' Jazzy thought resignedly. The Chinese wizards were hacking at and cursing the rosebushes whilst starting to conjure alternative exits.

Some had also spotted the broom. This pass would draw more incoming spellfire.

But she had promised the git behind her that she would slow down.

She did, but what this run lacked in speed, it more than made up in evasive manœuvre. She heard George cursing, even before they were done. It could not have gone well.

It had not.

Only one minor part of the grandstands had collapsed. All that had accomplished was provide the Triads an alternative means of egress from the stands and down to the ground.

"What happened this time?" Jazzy snarled, as they left the grandstand behind and made another wide turn

"Every time I had things lined up, you'd swerve this way or that like some bloody nutter," George groused. "You're making me dizzy, Jazzy."

"Just how did you learn to use that thing, anyway?" she asked acidly.

"With both damn feet on the ground, the way a bloke's supposed to," George protested.

"With both feet on the ground," Jazzy echoed sarcastically. "I suppose I could set you down the next time…. You wouldn't last five minutes, though."

"I suppose you've a better idea," George asked bitterly.

Both knew that, unless they improved a lot - and quickly, the Triads would inevitably overwhelm Neville and his field of Devil's Snare. The first few red-robed wizards out of the stands were already probing.

Jazzy shot back hotly, "Well, you know what you can.…"

Then it came to her.

"As a matter of fact, I do," she told him. "Let me do the aiming."

"What!?"

"You heard me," she demanded as she positioned the broom for a third pass. "I'll provide all the momentum and direction. Forget the scoop. You just toss those balloons straight up in the air when I say so."

"What!?"

"Just do it, dammit," she ordered. Jazzy's new course has the broom hurtling straight at the giant stones upon which the grandstands were anchored.

"Get ready," Jazzy shouted. She illuminated the Valkyrie's headlamp.

An ancient, mossy slab of bluestone loomed. George thought, for sure, they would be smashed like bugs on the Valkyrie's windscreen.

"Now!"

George had barely let go of the alkahest filled balloon when the broom lurched crazily. They avoided colliding with the first standing stone by what seemed like centimetres.

"Now!" Jazzy screamed again.

George released another balloon. Again Jazzy swerved. The balloon's momentum took it flush into the huge block of dolerite.

"Now!" There were no breaks to be had.

Another splat; another swerve.

"Now!"

George heard something go crashing down behind him. Breathing hard, he tried to forgot everything else and just keep the alkahest-filled balloons coming.

"Now!"

Come to think of it, flying directly beneath the grandstands had advantages - like keeping the Triads from firing spells at them….

"Now!"

Whoops. An evil-looking streak of cerulean magic sizzled by. It was so close that George, bedazzled, almost fumbled the balloon. It was so close that both thought it might have set their hair alight. The curse buried itself in the underside of the grandstand.

"Now!"

Check that … nobody could curse them - except those Triads already on the ground.

"Now!"

Completing the pass, Jazzy jammed her wand, controlling the Valkyrie, to full throttle. Jumping forward at maximum power, the broom zoomed from under the end of the grandstand and catapulted vertically towards the heavens.

Jazzy pulled the broom into an inside loop. They looked up - or down - as the entire grandstand finished toppling over backwards into a heap of melted stone, shattered wood, and maybe a thousand upended (or worse) Triads.

"Damn," George sighed, as he could at last think of more than the next balloon. "You really do fly like a maniac. I thought Harry was exaggerating…. Shite! Dementors! Hundreds of them!"

Sure enough, they had entered a swarm of more of those creatures than they could count. Their utterly black shapes seemed to absorb the light from the broom's headlamp.

"Can you conjure a Patronus?" Jazzy anxiously inquired.

George blanched. "Do I look like Harry to you?"

"Then our only hope is to outrun them," Jazzy decided.

And she did. Again, Jazzy pushed her wand forward to the breaking point. In no time she and George had left the Dementors far behind.

"All right, now what do we do?" George gasped once Jazzy finally slowed down. "Go for help?"

"Where?" Jazzy almost sneered. "There's an Auror base only a couple of klicks from Stonehenge. If they aren't responding to Moody's signals, why would we have any better luck…? Don't know about you, but I'm going right back in there - hot and low, and if you favour me with another of those charms, loud."

Jazzy was tiny. Almost two of her fit into armour fitted for Ginny (in no way hefty herself). But George, who outweighed her by a good six stone, was almost shocked by her raw determination. He took a deep breath. "All right, another run then - in front of the stands." He grabbed another handful of the Reverse Water Balloons. "All I need do is hit the ground this time. They'll make excellent quicksand. Even better than a bog."

"With gravity, you can handle it," Jazzy commented as she made ready for another pass, this time without the headlamp. "Then what?"

George did not usually think that far ahead. "Umm…. I guess you could drop me by the barrow where we started. I have more tricks stashed there…."

Jazzy nodded. She knew only one speed that night. As fast as the Valkyrie left, it returned. But in the interim, the Dementors had been put to flight by a golden stag, the likes of which neither the witch nor the wizard had ever seen.

Several Patronuses also stood guard - Hermione's phoenix, Moody's wolverine, and Neville's ox.

Neville's was a problem.

It had given his location away.

For crucial minutes, with only a couple of goblin snipers to keep him company, Neville had kept all those Triads at bay - with magical plants conjured or animated by the Staff of Asclepius. But once Neville's Patronus emerged, a thousand wizards relentlessly strafed his position - a blast hole at the base of one of the nemeton's trilithons - until the trilithon itself collapsed and buried him beneath a pile of shattered stone.

Dropping off George with a terse, "You ought to check that right ear," Jazzy reappeared over Stonehenge not thirty seconds after Neville's resistance ceased. She made up for a limited repertoire of curses with breakneck broom ærobatics - but without protective charms it was only a matter of time….

"Expelliarmus!" "Stupefy!" "Furnunculus!" "Impedimenta!" Jazzy peppered the advancing Triads whilst weaving crazily amongst a hail of curses. Eventually, she zigged when she should have zagged….

Blam!

Another of the brilliantly blue curses that had nearly interrupted her balloon run hit her squarely between the Valkyrie's right stabiliser bar and tail twigs. But for being only three metres off the ground when disaster struck, she might have recovered. Instead, the sudden power imbalance veered her hard right. She overcompensated with damaged steering, rolled, and ploughed into the turf.

Just before impact, Jazzy yanked her wand from the Valkyrie's control mechanism. In maintenance mode, that activated the broom's Ejection Charm, and she was thrown clear of the crash.

Jazzy bounced twice and slid to a halt. Her armour had prevented serious injuries, but she had barely staggered to her feet when her wand hand was grabbed from behind.

Jerked roughly around, Jazzy found herself face to face with a large, somewhat overweight red-robed Triad. He jabbed his wand into Jazzy's ribs violently enough that she felt something crack and incanted something in Chinese.

The curse bounced harmlessly off her armour. That stuff really worked.

The wizard snorted. He was holding her too far away for Jazzy to do anything else, so she spat in his face - not just any spit, but distinctly acidic saliva.

It was a little urchin's curse; something she had learnt years ago.

"Yeaah!" the massive wizard screeched as he tried wiping the corrosive liquid from his flabby cheek. Grimacing, he stopped attempting magic. Using his weight, he instead started choking the life out of her.

One massive hand slipped around Jazzy's throat, lifting her completely off her feet. As the Triad's fingers tightened, Jazzy's free hand went to her mouth.

Quicker than a scorpion's sting she whipped out the enchanted razor blade she carried at all times. Back and forth she slashed at the man's face, neck and arm.

The Triad, completely surprised by such a ferocious attack from such a featherweight, growled something in Chinese and tried hurling her to the ground.

Jazzy reversed roles and grabbed the man's arm, which required dropping her magical blade. Using his arm as her fulcrum, she lashed out with her Basilisk hide boots and landed a solid kick to the man's most sensitive spot. As he began doubling over, Jazzy wrenched the Triad's wand from his bleeding hand and shoved it into his eye with all her might.

Howling in pain, the Triad released Jazzy's wand arm. She dropped to the ground but two of his ham-handed fingers still gripped the collar of her armour.

Jazzy pointed her wand at his face. "Perfringo!" The Penetration Charm, taught to Second-Years as a spell for mundane tasks like pounding nails without a hammer, drove the man's wand through his brain.

It hit something vital. The massive Triad abruptly went limp and dropped like a stone - blood and cerebrospinal fluid pouring from his ruined eye. He fell directly atop Jazzy.

The dying man's weight bent her knee inward. One after another the tendons and ligaments holding her joint together snapped. Jazzy's ruined knee throbbed as she crashed to the ground, squashed by the much larger man's body.

All about, the Triads advanced. She stopped struggling. It was useless. She was crippled - suitable only for the Dark wizards' target practice.

It was time to concentrate on survival. As a small child she had lived through a communal attack in Kashmir in much the same way - only this wizard was not her mother.

She reached into her mouth, knowing where her razor would rematerialise once she let it go.

Grasping the blade firmly, she filleted the corpse from neck to navel. She felt - and smelled - blood and guts pour over her. It became quite easy for her to look just as dead as he was.

Flaccid, she waited for the Triads to pass by.

She was still waiting when the goblins attacked the Triads from the rear.

* * * *

It was over - all over, save the pain. His left shoulder was crushed beneath one of the huge blocks of stone that had toppled on him. The Staff was gone, smashed to pieces. Already entombed, Neville Longbottom waited for death.

He had fought well, but his best was not enough. In the end he was overwhelmed.

But not at first.

The Triads' attention had been elsewhere as he and Dobby sprinted around the perimeter of Stonehenge and dove into a still-smoking crater gouged by one of Harry's spells. A looming trilithon - a chunk of which later mangled his shoulder - provided good cover. He could see most of the Triads. Most of them could not see him.

Dobby added some elfin version of a Notice-Me-Not Charm.

Thus concealed, Neville set to his impossible task of repulsing a thousand or more Chinese Triads.

From his fortunate vantage point, he had detected the Triads' brooms piled beneath the grandstands on his side. Had they been on the other side, he would never have seen them. His first use of the Staff covered the brooms with a fast growing vine that, when attacked, behaved like a nest of cobras. As far as he knew, no Triad ever got off the ground that night.

At that thought, Neville smiled. Now, even smiling hurt. Some nearby flash briefly illuminated his resting place through a small gap between collapsed stones. He had no idea what supported the slab that seemed balanced but a few centimetres above his chest. If that thing shifted, he would not have time to bleed to death from his shattered shoulder.

A distant crash reminded Neville of his ultimate fate this night. His Sentinel Rosebushes had successfully blocked the Triads' egress from the grandstand - thanks to their Hydra-like qualities. Cut one piece off, and three times as many thorny stems regrew.

They held back the Triads until their grandstand started disintegrating. Holes and debris piles created random passages for them to climb down - escape routes that Neville could not see.

He was surprised that the rosebushes did as well as they had. Any self-respecting Herbologist knew they could be cursed, if not cut.

First backup was a field of Devil's Snare. Neville's timing had been lucky. He had barely finished conjuring the Snare when the entire grandstand toppled over backwards.

That memory drew a satisfied grunt, which hurt worse than his smile. He tried numbing his shattered shoulder. Nothing. Neville was never worth a damn at wandless magic

The Snare was his last good memory.

He had expected to watch Triads emerging from the collapsed grandstand only to be engulfed by the Snare. Instead, he had seen nothing. A cloud of Dementors settled over Stonehenge. Neville had learnt to conjure his Patronus. It sufficed to hold the soul-devouring creatures at bay.

Something drove them away - certainly not his modest effort. A speeding golden … something … had exploded the vile things on contact.

From his perspective, that had worked too well. The Dementors fled before his own Patronus could dissipate, giving away his position. The Triads finally discovered his hiding place.

Their resultant broadside left Neville with no option except hunkering down and hoping to ride out the bombardment. The crater Harry's random spellwork had gouged was a poor defensive position. Any retreat would have exposed him fully to the enemy. He had been trapped in his bunker.

Volley after volley of curses chipped away at the trilithon. Its first rockfall providentially created a ground-level parapet, blocking spellfire aimed straight at him. Peeking through a cleft, Neville could see Triads overcoming the Devil's Snare with Gubraithian Fire.

He fell back upon his second back up plan.

Venomous Tentacula.

He barely finished conjuring when another segment of the trilithon gave way. Dobby cast some shield that saved him from immediate death. Unfortunately, the massive bluestone slid off the shield and shattered his Staff before rolling away. Neville barely had time to dive back into the original crater. He never saw how the Tentacula performed.

The barrage of Triad curses never abated, and within a couple of minutes the entire trilithon crashed down….

So here he was,

An eerie howl - thousands of voices - filled the air. Were the Triads charging?

Another explosion rocked the area. The low-hanging stones above him creaked. A small cascade of dirt and pebbles hit him square in the face. Pinned, Neville could only try to spit the grit from his mouth.

Time lost its meaning. The sounds of battle faded. The pain in Neville's shoulder faded. He was thirsty, his throat dry and not just from the grit and dust; he recognized onsetting signs of possibly fatal blood loss. He seemed to be floating. Neville thought of his parents and their fate all those years ago. He urged death to find him before the Death Eaters did.

He had failed his friends - he knew it.

* * * *

Being caught unawares in a double game was extremely dangerous. Severus Snape tried strenuously to avoid it.

Tonight was an exception.

When the Dark Lord ordered three sexually oriented potions - hard upon his demanding the ingredients for Snape's ultra-sophisticated Love Potion - Snape had assumed that a Death Eater revel was in the offing, or perhaps the Dark Lord would officiate some arranged Death Eater marriages.

Both events had occurred during the First War. Lord Voldemort saw value in boosting the Dark side's morale.

Snape had sorely underestimated his Master's ambition.

The truth surfaced when Snape was called to a strange location to administer an unusual potion to a prisoner. He also learnt shocking news - the father of a current Hogwarts student was the master of an ancient underground Chinese magical society.

And more.

Triad leadership was inherited.

And more.

The Dark Lord and the elder Chang had agreed to join forces - permanently. The vehicle was a dynastic marriage. Lord Voldemort would marry Cho Chang under traditional Chinese rites.

And even more.

The wedding would be attended by the massed membership of both the White Lotus Triad and the Death Eaters. Immediate consummation would occur, using the Y-chromosome-favouring Fertility and Virility Potions that Snape had prepared. The Chang girl had no brothers. Under the marriage contract, a male Voldemort-Chang heir would eventually lead both British Death Eaters and the Chinese White Lotus Triad.

And so much more.

The Dark Lord would not take the trouble of assembling so many Death Eaters and Triads for a mere ceremony. With the Ministry's forces scattered and their communications disrupted, a grand opportunity existed. What was the Dark Lord's planned main thrust? Not being in that loop, Snape could only guess.

His guess was catastrophic.

But even if he guessed correctly, Snape could not warn anyone. He brought only those potions with him from Spinner's End - nothing else.

What of the unfortunate Ronald Weasley? He was a victim of the Dark Lord's imperfect bodily restoration, an imperfection created when Potter had inconveniently avoided death in that Little Hangleton graveyard.

Weasley would die because Potter had lived. Any irony was drowned in the Dark Lord's malevolent intent. He would drown the Boy Who Lived's spirit in a sea of guilt.

That goal converged with necessity arising from the Dark Lord's imperfect form. Bluntly speaking, Lord Voldemort's gun was almost empty. Conception was a challenge.

The solution was for Cho Chang to become as Dark as the Dark Lord - to match him. Only a Dark wizard could impregnate a succubus, but with sufficient Darkness conception was not difficult. Lord Voldemort possessed Darkness in great abundance.

The Dark Lord's flawed resurrection, courtesy of Potter's survival, required the Chang girl's metamorphosis into a succubus. That plan, Snape belatedly learnt - had been underway for many months.

Thus Snape's present predicament - standing in the first rank of Death Eaters in Stonehenge's great circle. Snape kept the Fertility Potion that the succubus Chang would consume once she had finished consuming whatever she required from the unfortunate Weasley.

The Headmaster left no instructions concerning Weasley, so Snape eschewed grand, futile gestures. Snape's resistance was passive. He did not interrupt the Dark Lord's busy schedule to discuss potion-related knock-on effects. Rather, Snape was content to provide a bookmarked tome - delivered personally to the Dark Lord's tent at a point when the occupant was absent and preoccupied.

Thus it went unsaid that Snape's Love Potion, not being Dark, might interfere with Cho Chang's succubial transformation. Nor did the Dark Lord learn that the Virility Potion, by focussing an inordinate amount of the user's magic on one particular function, temporarily reduced other aspects of magical effectiveness - such as duelling. Snape simply left the book, relevant passages duly marked, in the empty tent.

As a double agent, Snape covered his tracks well.

Snape could only hope that, once the Dark Lord and his newlywed Dark Lady were otherwise engaged, he could slip beyond the anti-Apparition wards, escape, and try to raise an alarm. Snape was a uniquely poor prospect for such an effort and knew it. Everyone he might try to warn - save the Headmaster - considered Snape a spy and a traitor.

Such was the plight of a double agent.

Hogwarts - Dumbledore - was Snape's only chance to avoid being cursed on sight.

Snape noted another worrisome detail. Lestrange, Dolohov, and the elder Malfoy were conspicuous by their absence. They must have good reason.

Snape averted his eyes from the scene at the altar. What was about to happen to Weasley, he would not wish on his worst enemy - not even Potter - James Potter.

Abruptly, the ground shook. Before Snape's eyes the entire centre of the nemeton erupted in bolts of magic, a score of explosions, and torrents of dirt and fractured rock. Then flaring spells shot into the sky, forming familiar Auror Assist signals.

Death Eater and Triad alike scrambled for defensive positions. As the landscape cleared, several dozen unknown, and presumably hostile, wizards could be seen scurrying about.

The assembled Dark forces had just began throwing curses when a hail of incoming spells tore through their number, forcing Snape and everyone nearby to dive for cover.

The spells came from the sky, but Snape saw nothing. Raising his head and his wand, he frantically looked about. Had the Aurors somehow discovered an operation that had even eluded him?

Despite the signals no Aurors appeared.

Whoever was attacking, Snape duly noted, had achieved significant surprise and made the most of it. The broom storage tent exploded in flames. The Dark forces were essentially grounded.

Snape had barely appreciated this development when the unseen attacker sent another salvo of incoming spells at the Death Eaters' position. The Dark Lord responded with a curse to split the attackers apart. Mr. Chang began screaming instructions to his Triads in Chinese.

This round landed close enough that - helped by a nasty patch of ice - it knocked Snape off his feet. Whilst being bowled over, Snape managed to spill the Fertility Potion. No heir would be conceived tonight.

That reminded him….

The Chang girl was nowhere to be seen.

No, wait, she had collapsed in a heap.

Weasley remained chained to the altar intended as his deathbed.

Lord Voldemort raised his sectioning spell - literally. It rose into the heavens as the Dark Lord searched for the camouflaged ærial attacker.

Where were the Triads? Their numbers should crush these opponents, who apparently numbered at most a few dozen - less if (as Snape suspected) they were using duplication spells.

Something happened in the sky. One of the Dark Lord's yellowish chains noticeably transformed, now a brilliant gold. It quivered for a moment in midair before dramatically shattering in all directions, fanning out across the sky.

The display resembled what some of the others had…. Potter!

Snape had learnt from Dumbledore about the wand cores shared by Potter and the Dark Lord - before even Potter himself knew.

Only Potter's wand could create what Snape was seeing.

If that were Potter, then there would be no Aurors. The Corps would never permit the sort of craziness now being exhibited overhead.

And if it were Potter….

Snape spun around so fast that he almost slipped again on the obnoxious ice.

Weasley!

Potter meant to rescue the redhead. That dunderhead would concentrate on saving his friend to the exclusion of all else. He probably had no idea what he was encountering.

Another explosion rocked the nemeton.

His compatriots were all distracted, engaged in a fierce firefight with - presumably - Potter. Maybe he could be useful….

Snape aimed his wand. "Sectumsempra!"

If Weasley did have a hidden rescuer about, Snape could make that job fifty percent easier.

Snape returned to the thick of the fight. Potter was pelting the Dark Lord and everyone in the vicinity with curses. Snape also saw something new. Lord Voldemort was visibly labouring under the onslaught.

The Dark Lord must have already taken his potion.

Snape sneered. Potter had always been luckier than he was good - and that luck seemed to be holding.

With a huge vermillion fireball and the sound of a thunderclap, the portal that most of the Triads used for transportation disintegrated. `They're stranded now,' Snape thought. `They'll fight to the death.'

Voldemort called down the Dementors. For a stomach-clenching minute, Snape thought that their numbers would decide the battle.

Until Potter did something so bizarre that even Snape knew of no precedent.

He generated something - it looked like a persistent golden Patronus - which promptly set about tearing the army of Dementors to shreds.

That latest setback sent the Dark Lord into a rage. He screamed out another wave of Killing Curses. Then, breathing hard, he whirled to face Snape.

Had the Dark Lord sensed his treason? Not for the first time, Snape braced for death at the hands of his Master.

Angrily Lord Voldemort seized Snape by the arm. He forced up his sleeve and touched his wand to Snape's Dark Mark.

"While a failed attempt on the Ministry may set me back," Voldemort hissed at the former Potions Master, "that pales in comparison to killing Potter, or even his Mudblood, tonight."

Despite excruciating pain, Snape was relieved. The doomsday scenario was averted. The Ministry would not be assaulted. Lord Voldemort was recalling his remaining Death Eaters from their jumping off points.

* * * *

Two inert, maroon-robed bodies rotated slowly, their heads downward. They were totally unconscious - oblivious to the harsh white light and even to their captors' almost nonchalant curses.

"Defodio!" incanted the almost bored witch seated between them. The amber-tinged hex sliced a Sickle-sized chunk of flesh from the leg of the body on her right. Blood dribbled from the fresh wound, down the man's leg, out of sight beneath his robes. There, it joined streams from a half-dozen similar wounds. Eventually it trickled into his already gory hair, forming droplets that joined the spreading crimson patch on the floor.

A loud noise came from the next room, followed by the sound of breaking glass. The witch turned her thickly-lidded eyes that way. "Niño, I thought you'd be done by now," she criticised.

"Found more of this bloody stuff than I expected," a wizard's gravelly voice answered. "This room wasn't empty after all … Concealment Charm."

Another loud bang and crash followed.

"Then hurry," she ordered impatiently. "Our master wants everything possibly useful to their resistance destroyed. There's not much time left. Our new, slant-eyed relatives," she scowled at the term, "will be here shortly."

That mere thought put Bellatrix Lestrange in particularly bad temper. She screamed "Seco!" From the body on the left, a thumb dropped to the floor.

That spell produced a muffled gasp of terror. The Dark witch stood up. She towered over a small boy, confined in an even smaller cast-iron cage that forced him to all fours.

She pointed her wand at him - right between his frightened eyes. Her hard expression softened into an evil smile. "Crucio!"

The boy's high pitch screams filled the adjacent underground passageways.

Finally, she stopped.

"No one can hear you scream - except us," Lestrange gloated. "All the Aurors in here are like those two … or worse. Crucio!"

"That's for bringing Muggle-inspired rubbish into our world," she barked at him. "I could curse you until your brains run out your ears - your friend Longbottom knows."

She stopped again.

"But if I did, who would remember that your stupidity made everything possible?" she sneered. "Yes … gave us everything we needed … even the exact hour - the exact minute - for us to act. Maybe we should give you a medal … a meddling Mudblood medallion…."

She cackled at her own joke.

Time passed. The crimson pools beneath the suspended wizards expanded. Lestrange grew ever more annoyed, as she brooded over what she knew was happening that very moment in Stonehenge.

To clear her mind, Bellatrix Lestrange needed a good battle - killing was just what the Healer ordered. Testily, she wondered where her promised Triad minions were.

Dolohov emerged, covered with dust and shattered glass. "Didn't think I'd finish in time," he grumbled. "Where are they? I can't wait to chase that Mudblood." He pulled out his pocket watch and peered at its nine hands - one for each circle of hell - impatiently.

"Anyway, I'm going to check on…."

Both Dark wizards clutched their left arms. Dolohov groaned, "What the fuck…?"

"Seems there's been a slight change of plans," Lestrange scowled - her Dark Mark also burning. "He wants us back at Stonehenge … just where I don't bloody well need to be."

"Avada Kedavra!" she howled. She split the Unforgivable two ways, the green light disappearing into both suspended bodies. She ended the spell that suspended them, and they plopped to the floor in a bloody lump.

She turned to the caged boy.

"That was just to make sure," she sniggered. "Regrettably, we must be going, but we have the small, quite small, problem of what to do with you…."

An evil gleam came to her eyes.

"Ferrulious," she incanted. A large pile of wooden sticks appeared. Lestrange banished them through a wide doorway with blasted-away doors. With her wand she arranged the sticks around several large, partially assembled pieces of equipment.

"Catena."

A chain, its end glowing red, appeared directly above the pile, affixed to the ceiling.

"Mobiliarca."

The cage drifted through the air. Its terrified inhabitant blubbering, "Please…. Don't … do anything. I didn't mean…."

"Shut it!" the witch imperiously commanded. "Some sorry excuse you are for a Gryffindor."

The boy purpled, and did as directed - but if looks could kill, the witch would have dropped dead.

The bars of the cage clattered against the chain's glowing end. It slithered around the cage's top bar and bound it fast.

"We'd best be going, Bella," Dolohov cautioned. "He doesn't like us to be late … really doesn't like it…."

She turned to him. "Would you like to do the honours?"

"Certainly," he agreed. "Inflammare!"

The spell set the pile of wood alight. Tongues of orange flame crackled noisily.

The boy shrieked once fire appeared immediately beneath, but no longer beseeched the Dark wizards' questionable mercies.

"This kills two Snidgets with one stone," Bella laughed. "The same fire cooks both you and your contraption."

The two Dark wizards Disapparated.

* * * *

Molly had just won her third straight round of Exploding Snap. Arthur's ears were still ringing when he heard a disturbance outside.

"Ginny, stay back," he ordered, drawing his wand. Turning to the Auror peering through the drawn drapes, he asked, "Alphonse, what's going on?"

"An intruder of some sort, sir," was the reply. "No spellfire it seems, but the guards don't know what to make of him. He looks like one of…. Oh! He just turned Edgar pink!"

Arthur Weasley shot out of his seat faster than if pranked by one of his sons' Fanged Whoopee Cushions, with the rest of his family right behind him.

"That's Fred!" Arthur shouted. "Let him go! He's my son! What are you doing here? You're supposed to be with George at the Château."

After identifying himself with the original source of the joke shop's funding, Fred spilled what he knew. Each statement seemed more incredible than the last.

Chinese New Year was not really for another two weeks.

Ron had walked into a trap at Cho Chang's house. He was a Death Eater prisoner.

The Death Eaters were up to something at Stonehenge.

Nobody could communicate with anyone else.

George, along with Harry, Hermione, and several others had gone to Stonehenge try to rescue Ron.

Before Fred was done with his breathless recitation, they knew that one alternative was closed. "Dammit! Bloody Auror and Ministry system's still down," Alphonse Mannock spat.

"The Order's signal went through, though," Molly screeched. "Yes … Minerva … there's serious trouble! We need everyone, especially Dumbledore. Here, I've got Fred. He'll explain!"

"I'm outta here," Mannock declared. "The action's at Stonehenge. I'll gather anyone I can muster on the way." He pulled something from his robes, resized it, and….

Ginny saw a really, really wicked broom - just like the one Hermione neither used nor would lend to her.

"I want to go!" she declared.

"No!" Arthur, Molly, and Fred replied in unison.

Molly looked like she might kill Mannock herself and save the Death Eaters the trouble. The flyer answered Ginny, "Can't. My Valkyrie's charms don't know you."

Ten seconds later, Mannock was gone.

And Fred was done with McGonagall. "Shite!" he shouted.

…And received no parental reprimand. "What now?" Molly demanded.

"Dumbledore's not around," Fred groaned. "He's off to bloody China. What if Harry's group runs right into Voldemort?"

* * * *

What, indeed?

Once again Hermione was alone - sitting with her back against the far wall of her damaged fort - her wounded wand arm resting on a block of stone. Her wand, lashed to a spell-damaged hand that could no longer grip it, pointed at the hole blasted in the wall, a hole partially blocked by Dolohov's petrified body. Hermione's off hand clenched his captured wand.

If the Death Eaters found her, Hermione vowed to take as many with her as possible, using what she remembered from Lesson 128. Grimly, she recited from memory the incantation for the Entrail-Expelling Curse.

Still, Hermione hoped that her contemplated last stand would not be necessary. The goblin army was approaching, and she could hear the sounds of increased fighting. Hermione had all but ordered Harry to do his duty, command that army, and stop worrying about her. Maybe the goblins would reach her before the Death Eaters. She had told Roxtar to stop babysitting her and to rejoin the fight.

Looking out for herself, for good measure Hermione had cast Cave Inimicum on her surroundings.

Now she waited.

From her vantage point, most of what Hermione could see was sky. For what must have been the third time, something gold streaked overhead. Were her injuries so severe that she was hallucinating? That looked almost like Harry's stag.

A stray curse landed nearby; its crimson glow briefly cast shadows.

She was tired - very tired.

On the verge of lapsing into semi-consciousness, Hermione was taken completely by surprise when, from nowhere, an invisible hand closed around her left foot.

Reflexively she kicked at it. Hermione's further response was to try aiming her wand at the intruder. Before she could position her damaged arm, she stopped - halted by the flood of hope and relief that flowed from the hand.

"Luna!" Hermione gasped in disbelief. "What are you doing here? You risked me redecorating this place with your guts - and where's Ron?"

"Ronnie is safe," Luna smiled enigmatically as she slipped off the Invisibility Cloak. "As safe as he can be. He's in Harry's motorbike, under Dreamless Sleep Potion, with all the bike's charms active. Right now, you need me more."

An incoming spell blasted the trilithon behind them, showering them with chips of stone.

"You're hurt," Hermione blurted, seeing Luna's blood-smeared face and hands.

"Doesn't matter. You can stop this," Luna commented portentously.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not in any shape to leave," Hermione replied with a sigh. She raised her arm and showed Luna her injured hand.

"I mean you have the power to stop … this…," Luna responded more emphatically, spreading her arms wide.

Hermione's eyebrows rose. "You mean … the battle?" she asked sceptically.

"Yes, I believe you do," Luna intoned. Her hand found Hermione's wounded forearm. Luna winced at the pain she sensed. "There's a spell, a Druid spell."

"Then, you'd better do it," Hermione sighed heavily. "You know them better than I."

A nearly spent goblin cross-bow bolt smacked into the top log with a twanging sound.

"I don't have the power to use it, but I think you do," Luna insisted. "I'll help you."

"Luna, what are you on about?" Hermione protested. "What you're saying is crazy. I don't know…. Eek!"

A pervasive buzzing sound announced an invasion by a nasty horde of biting insects. Hermione vainly tried smacking them away, but they attacked her fingers, leaving bloody slashes.

Luna threw the Invisibility Cloak over them both. Hermione, regaining her senses, followed with a Protego. Realising that the ferocious grasshoppers could not get through Basilisk hide, Hermione and Luna scraped the remaining yellow and black coloured bugs from their hands and from each other's faces. Finally, they crushed the stragglers that had worked their way under their armour's trouser cuffs.

Luna did most of the work, because Hermione was effectively one armed.

The blonde looked befuddled. "What's all this?" she asked Hermione.

"You're the magical creature expert, or so I thought."

"Magical? Hmmm … they did vanish when we smashed them, didn't they?" Luna peered one of the many examples crawling on the outside of the Cloak. "They look like carnivorous locusts to me."

Hermione made a most unpleasant face. The air was thick with the things. Was this swarm enough to drive off a goblin army? From History of Magic she recalled how a swarm of angry hornets had once helped Andros the Invincible repulse a goblin attack. Professor Binns thought it might be a myth, but….

"All right, Luna, let's do it," Hermione decided.

"Do what?" the other girl asked. She poked at the locusts on the other side of the Cloak with her wand.

"Whatever spell you thought might put paid to all this." As Hermione spoke, a whistling sound, followed by a loud bang, brought home that the battle still raged.

"Oh … yes," Luna turned away from her creature fascination. "We must go to the centre of the great circle. Do you remember how to Search?"

"What…? Out there? Search?" Hermione spluttered. "What is this all about?"

"Hermione … do you trust me?" Luna asked as she laid hands on both of the other girl's shoulders. She was empathising again. Hermione felt a sense of desperate trust - almost blind faith - flowing into her.

"Why … yes, of course…," she told Luna.

"There's too much … to explain," Luna spoke in that strange, disembodied voice she sometimes used. "Afterwards, once you've seen - assuming I'm right - it will be easier…."

That gave Hermione pause. "Luna … are you sure about this…?"

"One can never be certain," the other girl answered ambiguously. "I believe that this spell will end the battle … if you can do it. The goblins have forced the Dark forces to use the nemeton as a bulwark."

They heard an explosive whooshing sound followed by bright orange light. Hermione recognized that as more Fiendfyre - although not aimed in their direction.

"Okay, Luna."

Under cover of the Cloak - and a modified Protego that allowed for slow movement - the pair crept beyond the confines of Hermione's Cave Inimicum. Luna led the way, taking Hermione's injured hand in hers, more as a palliative than any serious attempt at Healing. The Ravenclaw had an almost preternatural sense of where to go.

She was also right about the course of the battle. The swarm of locusts seemed to be abating, at least inside the stone circle. All about them, Hermione and Luna could see Death Eaters and Triads, using the nemeton as a barricade, trading curses with unseen adversaries.

"There," Hermione whispered. "Dressed in red … Voldemort."

She was right. Directing his forces from near the ruined altar, and occasionally firing deadly curses of his own, stood the Dark Lord himself, dressed in rather badly disarranged crimson robes.

"This way," Luna hissed. They ducked behind the large carcass of that downed quetzalcoatlus. The manmak-covered arm of a dead goblin protruded from beneath. Still, the creature's large limp wings provided some cover.

"Here," Luna pronounced. "This is the spot."

Hermione looked around. It was hard to tell from behind enemy lines, but she sensed that the goblins were still winning. Bodies of dead and wounded Dark wizards were strewn about, both red and black. Incoming goblin fire was slowly reducing the stone arches to rubble. Stonehenge now looked quite like its Muggle pictures.

Angry voices to her left caused Hermione to extend her wand arm. She saw Mad-Eye Moody in a furious duel with … was that Bellatrix Lestrange?

"Don't, you'll only give us away. Let him do what he does best." Hermione felt Luna tugging at her sleeve, indicating that they ought to lie down.

"Now, you need to Search, for the gnomon-cenotaph … the blue stone upon which you were … you started your Search for Harry…."

This instruction made no sense to Hermione, but none of Luna's current weirdness did. Uncharacteristically, Hermione was acting solely on faith. "Search … for the stone itself?" Hermione echoed.

"The stone, for its magic," Luna clarified. "It's a very powerful magical object, and you're familiar with its signature…."

`And it once resided here,' Luna thought to herself, not sharing this fact with Hermione. Explanation would come afterwards.

"And then?" Hermione continued, needing to know what to expect.

"I will recite the spell as your … oath helper," Luna went on. Whilst Luna spoke, her eyes went out of focus. Hermione felt a combination of trust and faith flowing from the other girl. "It's a long spell - in Keltoi. After every line I'll pause for you to repeat it. You will draw on the magic of the stone…."

"What do I do with my wand?" Hermione broke in. "I can't move my hand."

"The spell is intended to be wandless," Luna reassured. "But I suppose … pointing at the ground couldn't hurt."

"At the ground?"

"Yes," Luna reiterated. "Please, Hermione, we need to finish…."

A large explosion nearby added an exclamation point to Luna's plea.

"All right."

"The spell may have mental effects, like Searching," Luna spoke quickly. "Just listen for my voice and repeat. If you are succeeding, your hands may start glowing the colour of the stone. Just keep repeating after me. If it works, you'll know. You'll sense it."

Hermione grunted her assent.

Luna grabbed Hermione about both shoulders and found a position where she could whisper in the older girl's ear.

"Now Search."

To use her Empath abilities to their fullest, Luna brought as much of herself into contact with Hermione as she could. She felt Hermione's mental surges as her most capable friend concentrated on searching for the gnomon-cenotaph, just as she had once searched for Harry.

Luna felt a sensation of motion, of hurtling down a long tube, of flying, of darting in and out of clouds….

Hermione was the Searcher again. Luna could feel it. Luna was now the older girl's only link to outside world - until she found….

Luna felt something else … something both familiar and powerful. This was the same magical surge energy Luna had felt when Hermione had successfully undergone the Psycho Patefacius spell in the Founders' Chamber. Then, it had dropped Luna to her knees. Now it was a signal to commence.

"Hermione, repeat after me," Luna directed. "Dado chan'ar choestwit am byth, fami chan'ar fur-fa-fennaut, d'ata am buro `cha bllwc…."

She did.

Luna had to complete fully twenty verses of this ancient spell. It was not intended for battlefield conditions. But again, the great Stonehenge nemeton had not been invaded in this fashion in almost two millennia.

As each sing-song verse was spoken and repeated, Luna could sense the magic surrounding them grow stronger. After the seventh verse, she began seeing a blue glow emanating from Hermione's undamaged left hand and from the edge of the angry gash that sliced across her other wrist.

Luna almost faltered at the tenth verse. A couple of curses struck very nearby. One sliced through the leathery wing of the dead beast that provided them some modicum of cover. The breeze kicked up by the two-metre high membrane toppling over momentarily distracted her.

Although Luna hesitated, Hermione did not. Luna exhaled with relief as Hermione repeated the words strongly, omitting her pauses. The intensity of the blue glow grew with each verse.

By the fifteenth verse, Luna had to grit her teeth at burning pain from her lower left leg. It felt like…. She glanced down. The corner of the Invisibility Cloak had been blown back, exposing the better part of her lower legs. Locusts had landed and had obviously crawled under her armour to chew on her leg.

Luna could not move - could not do anything to stop the pain or rearrange the Cloak - without disrupting Hermione's concentration, and thus the spell. It was working. Her suspicions were true….

Almost imperceptibly, Luna shifted her feet to push down Hermione's pant legs - to protect The One from the locusts. Luna called upon an ability that had saved her life once before and separated her mind from her body. Her legs were now unnecessary.

Hermione had just finished her repetition of the eighteenth verse when Luna heard loud voices and several spells being hurled. She recognised Harry's voice, but not his spell. She could sense the presence of strong magic - whether Harry's or Hermione's was unclear.

The other spells she knew all too well.

There was no turning back. They had to finish the spell.

Or would they be finished first?

Suddenly, Luna felt very, very cold.

* * * *

The goblin flyers vanished into the night. Harry looked down at his now-bandaged leg. He was very, very lucky to be alive. A third goblin flyer was not - because of him. That one had deliberately flown into the path of the Killing Curses.

Goblins were like that. Another did the same thing for Ragnok the night of the ill-fated Ashrak.

Harry cautiously tested his broom. The left stabiliser bar was out entirely, and its back half gone. That was the source of the splinters that had injured his leg, even through the Basilisk hide trousers.

A couple of centimetres either way, and the one unblocked Killing Curse would have done him in.

Harry had to steer the wounded Valkyrie hard to the right just to keep it flying straight. Manœuvres to the left side were out of the question. Power was down, and that meant choosing between the broom's concealment and shield charms. He chose to keep Furtim.

And he was tired. The goblins shared some hardtack and pemmican to take the edge off his hunger, but Harry had not eaten anything else in well over twelve hours. He had been expending his magic at a terrific rate.

The goblin army had arrived, only minutes behind the flyers. Hermione had demanded that he assume the command inherent in his goblin status.

He humoured Hermione because she sounded as bad as he felt. Harry had no serious intention of commanding the goblins. He would only bollix things up, since he did not know anything about fighting pitched battles.

Harry just did the fighting.

So he would keep fighting his battle, and let the goblins fight theirs.

With Ron evidently rescued, Harry's battle was now to keep Death Eaters away from Hermione and everyone else who had followed him into harm's way yet again.

Perched on his partly disabled broom, Harry fired such spells as he could manage whilst watching the battle unfold beneath and behind him. Several thousand goblins surged forward across largely open terrain and collided violently with a considerably smaller number of Triads and Death Eaters.

Under that onslaught, the Triads retreated behind the ruined grandstand. From there, they broke the goblins' initial charge. Spells and projectiles criss-crossed thickly, as each side bloodied the other. Individually, the Triads seemed to pack more firepower - but there were four or five times as many goblins.

The goblins, pushing their numerical advantage, suspended the frontal assault and sought to outflank the Dark forces in either direction.

The Dark forces responded by fortifying Stonehenge circle.

Harry thought he saw a weak spot in the rear, where some sort of road entered. If he could keep the Death Eaters away from that gap, the goblins could get in.

But that meant passing directly over Voldemort and the wizard with him - presumably Mr. Chang - who was directing the Triads.

That never happened.

The Chinese wizard had his wand drawn, and Harry flew right into the path of the spell. He heard the whistling of millions of tiny wings, and then….

"Aaauuugh!"

Harry was being battered by the bodies of countless flying insects. The swarm was so thick that it pushed his broom to one side. The bugs splattered against his windscreen in such numbers that, within seconds, he could not see anything in front of him except dying yellowish grasshoppers.

By the thousands they collided with Harry as well.

Those that survived impact tried to eat him.

Harry's face, his hands, and his calves burned with the pain of thousands of tiny pincers tearing at his skin. They were crawling under his glasses - he had to close his eyes. Taking one last look at the Valkyrie's instruments Harry jammed the broom not only hard right, but straight up.

He turned off the windscreen and relied on his seat belt.

Hurtling straight up, Harry soon exited the swarm of flesh-eating locusts, which was not even directed at him. Even at half power, the Valkyrie had more than enough climbing speed to generate one-hundred plus kilometer winds that blew off all but a few of the obnoxious insects.

Well above the swarm, Harry quickly exterminated the few locusts that remained. Once dead they vanished. These locusts were a magical creation.

Harry wanted to heal some of the myriad minor cuts and bites he had suffered. But when he bent down to start with his throbbing calves….

He saw the same locust swarm falling upon the goblin army - in numbers that made it difficult even to see the goblins from this vantage point so high above the fray. The goblins' wavering ranks and almost random spell fire indicated that the carnivorous insects were taking their toll.

For some reason, the Triads seemed to be immune. They were advancing.

Why did the goblins not protect…? Then Harry remembered - he might have failed his History of Magic O.W.L., but he would never forget Dumbledore's criticism.

Goblin magic did not include protective shields.

But in their duel, Hermione had….

In a flash, Harry knew what to do, but it meant re-entering the swarm - unshielded.

"Transenna Culicidæ!" he incanted as he waved his wand around himself.

Harry could feel the spell working.

Immediately he put his battered broom into as much of a power dive as he dared. To conserve the Valkyrie's dwindling resources, he turned off its Concealment Charm.

Harry wanted the goblins to see and recognise him. Nominally, he was their commander. He hoped to rally them with what he was going to do.

Before long insects again began impacting his windscreen - Harry felt them, too - but now they could not reach his skin.

Harry swooped in low, shielded but unconcealed, and began firing the same spell, right and left, using both his broom's remaining ordnance and his own wand.

"Transenna Culicidæ!" "Transenna Culicidæ!"

Mosquito netting spewed out all over the battlefield. Behind him, through the necklace, he saw it covering one goblin unit after another. It did not take them long to figure out what to do with it. Goblins with their ears half eaten away or their arms full of gashes scrambled for the netting's protection from the carnivorous insects.

Between Harry's evasive manœuvres and his purely defensive spellwork, the Triads had no idea what was happening. Other than a few curses he easily dodged with rightward rolls, they did nothing to stop him.

Harry could see the goblins regrouping and reforming their lines, now with the means of keeping themselves free of the swarm.

Over and over again Harry repeated the spell. Conjuring great quantities of the simple stuff was ridiculously easy. It was rope-a-dope all over again. Using a simple spell to defeat powerful magic. It was just like Hermione….

Hermione! She was still in there, somewhere.

With one final effort, Harry produced enough netting to cover a Quidditch pitch. "Sonorous," Harry cast the spell on his own throat. He called out to the reforming goblin units, some of which still wavered under the combined attack of the locusts and the Triads. "You say I'm your general, well follow me! Spraska arad!"

With that, Harry pushed his broom upward. Completely for effect, because he had to conserve power, he fired a volley of otherwise harmless green sparks at the Triads. He lurched forward. Back over the circle, he turned the Furtim back on, the Sonorous off, and prepared to resume his vigil.

He hoped he had at least kept the goblins fighting - from the looks of things through the eyeball necklace, he had.

Harry spotted Mr. Chang floating across the ruined nemeton less than a metre above the ground, oblivious to Harry's presence - a target of opportunity. He squinted into the broomsight. "Bombardo!" Harry roared. He missed, but not by much. The Chinese wizard went sprawling.

Buoyed by that success, Harry searched for more chances to make a difference. He did not have far to look.

An intense duel was being fought behind the lines - between what appeared to be two black clad Death Eaters. Harry swooped low for a look and almost immediately identified one of them as Bellatrix Lestrange. Her duelling style was indelibly fixed in Harry's memory.

That was good enough for Harry. Any enemy of Lestrange was a friend of his.

Taking advantage of his concealment, Harry swooped in low and let her have it with a Bone Breaker Hex, then a Blood Boiling Hex, followed by his favourite, Expelliarmus.

Harry was running mostly on adrenalin, and forgot that his Valkyrie had a constant leftward yaw. As a result, all his spells again missed.

But they sent Lestrange scurrying for cover nonetheless, a good thing for her opponent, who was limping badly. As Harry passed by, he saw the dueller's hair flash fluorescent orange - only one witch, to his knowledge, could do that.

Harry carefully brought his broom around, intending to give Tonks more support, but during the turn he saw something through the necklace that banished the young Auror's predicament from his brain.

Partially hidden by the shattered remains of the goblin flyer who had saved Harry's life, was a woman's leg clad in Basilisk-hide armour.

Hermione's leg.

With nothing attached to it.

Harry's heart dropped. Why had Hermione left the protection of her own spells and managed…? Hopelessness rose inside him. She could never have survived losing that much….

No.

Yes!

A right turn and a close pass took Harry from the depths of despair to the brink of euphoria. Hermione was not blown to bits. Upon closer examination he saw two legs, not one. She and Luna were mostly hidden, yet alarmingly partially visible, under his Invisibility Cloak.

Why no longer mattered. Harry had to protect them.

The necklace again helped. Through it, Harry saw a volley of curses approaching. He dodged them with another abrupt dodge to the right, simply by ending any effort to control the Valkyrie.

He regained control with difficulty. Now, his overworked right stabiliser bar was now smoking. A warning light proclaimed that his Furtim was failing, fading in and out.

A Killing Curse shot by, and Harry saw Voldemort stepping from the shadows - another one-on-one duel in the offing, with Harry's Valkyrie now much worse for wear. A werewolf who had just received the Dark Lord's orders shot away on all fours - fortunately not in Hermione's direction. Voldemort still had his giant snake slithering at his side.

No - check that - Voldemort was starting to fly, and not with a broom!

Harry had never seen any wizard do that, not even Dumbledore. Instinctively, he sighted and let loose a pair of Disarming Charms in Voldemort's direction. The Dark wizard parried them. "Impedimenta!" Harry watched disbelievingly as the force of his spell appeared to push Voldemort back to the ground.

Had he just shot Voldemort down?

Even if down, the evil wizard was by no means out.

And Harry was in even more trouble. He was now visible to the Death Eaters and Triads on the ground. His effort to keep Voldemort away from Hermione was impeded by having to dodge increasingly frequent, if not particularly well aimed, curses.

One reason for their poor aim was suppressing fire being added on his behalf by several more goblin flyers.

Harry's apparent advantage over Voldemort was a mirage. The Death Eater leader allowed returned to earth voluntarily after seeing something during his brief time aloft. He decided to rid himself of Harry's distraction

Harry was low enough and close enough to hear the unfamiliar curse he used. "Adaugeo ala Opressus!"

Almost instantly, Harry was bowled over by a shock wave that, due to its size, was impossible to avoid and, due to its power, was impossible to resist. He flipped through three unplanned backward somersaults before colliding solidly with the lintel of the one trilithon inside the nemeton not yet destroyed in the now hours-long battle.

Once again, Harry was lucky. Under the pressure of Voldemort's shockwave, he had completely lost control of his broom. Without a seatbelt, he would have been thrown fatally to the ground. Harry might have crashed anyway, but the angle of his collision with the stone popped him back into the air.

Staggered, more than a little surprised at finding himself still airborne, Harry pushed the wobbling, barely functional Valkyrie upward. Bleeding from a ruptured eardrum, he strained to ignore pain spreading throughout his hip. The impact was hard enough to shred his life-saving seatbelt and, from the popping sounds Harry heard, break several bones in that area.

Fortunately, Voldemort's attention was no longer on Harry.

Unfortunately, the Dark Lord's attention - and wand - was now trained on Hermione's partially uncovered form.

Through the one eye that remained attached to the backwards-facing necklace Harry saw that Bellatrix Lestrange, having tag-teamed with Fenrir Greyback, was poised to join Voldemort's party.

As Harry realised what the scene unfolding before him meant, an adrenalin rush cleared the cobwebs from his brain. Even if he threw himself in front of Voldemort's curse, he could not also block the second Unforgivable that Lestrange was preparing to utter.

He had no choice. The Valkyrie's broomsight had been ripped away. Ignoring his hip - which was going numb anyway - Harry yanked his hybrid wand free from the failing Valkyrie. He pointed them both at a space just behind Hermione's prone and stationary form. Summoning every shred of magical strength and concentration that remained, he screamed, "Frigidio Maximus!!"

This spell was invisible. Success or failure would abide the outcome. Harry felt his magic surge as darkness closed in. With his last magical energy draining into his spell, Harry willed himself to stay conscious until he saw the evil green of Voldemort's Killing Curse disappear into a small cloud of fog surrounding a spot of unfathomable darkness. The last thing he saw was the same curse re-emerge - deflected precisely along the path provided by Lestrange's ruddy Cruciatus.

Was it finished? Was he?

With a trace of a smile on his face, Harry fainted and toppled from his drifting broom.

* * * *

Author's notes: Lay thunder down - from Roger Daltry's "Under A Raging Moon"

Harry used the Puff the Magic Dragon spell at Kew Gardens in Ch. 23 when he thought Death Eaters were attacking

Actually Salisbury Plain is chalk, not marl. Artistic license

The Somme was the site of two bloody WWI battles; Wiltshire is where Stonehenge is located

Shove into overdrive - from Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone"

The Valkyrie's ordnance was detailed in Ch. 12

Hellas Infernum was introduced in Ch 17

Pulling Gs is a pilot's term for maneuvers generating gravity-like force; clenching the stomach muscles is a way of compensating

Harry got the second wand in Ch. 40

Suturc was introduced in Ch. 21; Harry learned its anti-Dementor qualities in Ch. 31

St. Elmo's fire is a natural static electrical discharge often seen in storms at sea

The golden lightning was in Ch. 11

12-point antlers means a big buck

"Red coal carpet" is from the Stone's "Gimme Shelter"

Fluvius Azote was one of Hermione's dueling spells in Ch. 49

Liliaceous was introduced in Ch. 23

Achilles was killed by a poisoned arrow to the tendon that bears his name

When Hermione absorbed Fawkes in Ch. 36, it altered her Patronus

Hermione's encounter with the firestorm was in Ch. 28

A bunyip is a mythical Australian beast

An Asterlisk, introduced in Ch. 51, felled Dolohov

There is no canon description of Sectumsempra, so I created one

The Dementors caused Luna to hear her father's last moments, as mentioned in Ch. 23

The fireman's carry is a rescue carry position

Druantia is the chief Druid goddess

The Caterwauling Charm doesn't have a canon incantation, so I created one; it's actually the title of a Steppenwolf song

The Sentinal Rosebush is modeled on Disney's old Sleeping Beauty thornbushes

Madame Butterfly is a helpless woman character in a Puccini opera

The mad broom flight through the standing stones is based upon the forest chase scene in Return of the Jedi

Jazzy's blade is introduced in Ch. 40

Snape errs in his guess about the purpose of the love potion

The nine circles of Hell are from Dante. The watch is appropriate for Dolohov this night

Alphonse Mannock was the flight instructor in Ch. 12

Hermione's would be last stand is patterned after Jim Bowie's at the Alamo

"Upon which you were" - Luna almost gives something away

Oath helpers were historical antecedents to lawyers

Keltoi is ancestral Celtic language

How Luna's separation of mind and body previously saved her life is described in Ch. 24

The Ashrak is in Ch. 14

The goblin discussion with Dumbledore occurred in Ch. 4

The netting spell is another of Hermione's from the duel in Ch. 49

Harry's two-line speech to rally the goblins is modeled on Napoleon at Lodi

75

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\HP & The Fifth Element.ch51 Padfoot's legacy.doc 2/8/2009

Document created with wvWare/wvWare version 1.2.7

-->