money from it, so please Mrs. Rowling if you read this
don’t sue me. A comment or two would be welcome
though.
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Chapter 9: Pawn to E4
The fire burning in the hearth of the chamber, despite its size, did little to heat the cold of the room. Only the small area near it noticed any real change in temperature. The darkness of the windowless room pervaded threatening to overtake the feeble light cast by the torches mounted on the walls and extinguish them altogether. Cloaked, hooded figures moved quickly and silently in the shadows behind the twelve who stood in a semi-circle facing the fire and the back of the lone, throne like, chair that sat just at the edge of the line of heat the fire cast off.
“Where are they Severus?” Voldemort hissed at him. Snape moved quickly, postioning himself in between Voldemort and the fire, sinking to his knees before speaking.
“Master, I do not know. I have been here with you the whole summer,” Severus Snape replied cautiously.
“I know that Severus, but you; unlike some of my servants have a brain in your head. You are with that old fool most of the time. You must have some thoughts as to where he has hidden them.”
“My Lord, you know he is brilliant, I do not think even he knows where they are hiding.” Voldemort almost laughed. Snape was right; Dumbledore was not truly a fool. If anyone could hide Harry and the other three from him, and then hide the knowledge from himself it was Dumbledore.
“Perhaps we shall attack the train as they are brought to the school this year Severus?” Voldemort remarked, clearly enjoying the thought.
“My lord is that wise? He is sure to place many Aurors there. We suffered many losses in our attack last week, without facing them.
Snape asked this question with terror in his heart. It was a foolish man who reminded Voldemort of that utter failure. Voldemort considered this reply with barely controlled rage.
Draco Malfoy had mentioned to his father that there was some club being run at the school, Harry Potter was the leader. It had taken a year for Crabbe, Goyle, and Malfoy to get the names of all the students in the club out of their respective sons. Harry was such a fool that the knowledge of who they were was a powerful weapon to have against him.
Voldemort had decided to attack all of them after Harry had rescued the Dursleys that spring. If Harry would come rescue the Muggles who had raised, but hated him, then surely he would come for these friends.
He had picked Harry’s birthday on purpose, to taunt him. It had seemed like a perfect plan. Yet his Death Eaters had been savaged in the fights.
Forty-two dead, twenty-three captured because of their injuries, compared to twelve dead and an unknown number of injuries for the other side. And most of the carnage to his followers had been caused by children. They had even killed two of his inner circle. Voldemort cared not that any of them were dead, only for the loss of a servant.
Those that successfully completed their attacks had not gotten any information from the ones they tortured. And they had all been driven off by Aurors, who arrived much too soon after the attacks started, to bring back even one prisoner. Voldemort was convinced one of his followers was a spy because of it.
Harry had not come to the aid of any of his friends, nor had the boy Ronald Weasley or that Girl Hermione Granger, Weasley now, Voldemort reminded himself. He would have been happy with the death of even one of them.
And then there was the other girl, Harry’s wife. Even though he had never seen her before she knelt on the ground in front of Harry in the graveyard, Voldemort recognized her from somewhere. She had done nothing in that fight, yet he knew she was powerful.
She had confirmed it when she did come to the rescue of her friends. Her stunning spells, if you did not erect a shield to deflect the blast, killed those she attacked as surely as the death curse. And while anyone could snap a wand in half, to simply crush one into fine powder with magic - that required power near his own. She, along with the other two was more than a match for any of his Death Eaters. All three, along with Harry, had to die.
“You think I fear the Aurors, Severus?” Voldemort hissed at him.
“No, Master,” Snape replied, only just daring to hope he would not be punished for his insolence.
“Yet you offer me nothing as to where these four are. Their school year starts soon. You have told me the old fool will not be letting any students leave the grounds to go to Hogsmead this year. My patience is thin. I want them dead. Perhaps I will attack the school itself,” Voldemort said, his anger rising by the second.
Snape did not reply. Voldemort had threatened the school many times; this was no different. Snape was sure he would not carry out the threat, the train however, that was another matter.
“Master?” One of the other figures standing in the semi-circle said as he moved cautiously in front of Voldemort and sank to his knees.
“You have something to say, Lucius?” Voldemort hissed dangerously at him.
“Perhaps there is a way to get to Potter and the others,” Lucius replied. Voldemort considered the kneeling figures before him.
“Severus, the rest of you, leave us,” Voldemort hissed. He waited quietly for the room to empty before speaking again.
“Go on, Lucius,” he said when he felt the last of his servants leave the room.
Pain is one of the most curious of sensations, completely relative and entirely dependent on the strength of mind of the person suffering. As long as you could convince yourself that the pain did not matter, then you were fine. Cho Chang had been able to convince herself for almost seventy minutes of off and on again torture that the pain she was in did not matter, that it would end and she would be fine. Finally she had reached her breaking point. Her mind had separated who she was from the pain.
For her, it was a temporary solution. If the curse had continued, she had no way of convincing the one part of her mind that was suffering that it would end. Eventually that part of her mind would have quit accepting the pain and she would have died. That is what happened to Luna Lovegood. Luckily for Cho, Ginny had rescued her soon enough after the split, that the one part of her mind that registered the pain had not shut down and killed her.
Unfortunately for Cho she had still been trapped, because the part of her mind that knew the pain had ended could not reach past the wall to who she was. She had been lucky again. Hermione did have the strength to reconnect her mind and make her whole again.
Harry understood all of this now, and it did not help in the least as he watched Ron’s trembling body. Ron was nearing the end of this training session, and he was fighting desperately to convince the voice that the pain did not matter. Thankfully, he was not screaming in agony. None of them did anymore, at least not Ron, Ginny, Hermione or himself; most of the rest of the DA was another matter.
Harry flinched as a particularly violent tremble ripped through Ron. He and the others had done a lot of things to themselves to prepare for the fight with Voldemort. This was by far the worst. The strength it took to fight the Cruciatus curse was unbelievable. Two hours was as bad as ten spent trying to get into each other’s minds. He did not know how, but they all got better each session.
Harry turned away. It was sickening to watch, and he needed his strength to cast the curse at the rest of the DA later that day. Some wizards may have been impressed with how long Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione, could fight the curse; they themselves were not. They had an advantage.
For Harry and sorcerers like him who had developed different selves, they could send all the pain to one voice. As long as they could convince the voice that the pain would end, they could fight. Because they always had part of their mind separated from the pain, it was much easier for them to fight the curse than for a sorcerer without the voices. What impressed Harry, and the others, was the rest of the DA.
All of them had decided to train against the curse, even those whose minds had split under the effects of it when the Death Eaters had been torturing them for real. They were unable to separate any part of their mind from the pain, and when Harry or one of their other three leaders cast the curse at them. Their screams of agony reverberated in the appration training room. Those screams also burned into Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny’s minds.
The four of them had not slept in their own rooms since the training began. The only comfort they could find was in each other on the floor of their sitting area. Each of them wanted nothing more than to stop the training sessions, but each day there were a few members of the DA who would ask to have the curse cast at them. Harry and the others all knew that if their friends had the strength to deal with the pain, then they owed it to them to cast the curse.
The Unspeakable who cast the curse at Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny monitored all of the DA members’ progress. His ability to cast the curse was too great to risk on any of the rest of the DA, but he kept track of the charts for each person and set the maximum time limit of their next session. None of the DA was even approaching the time Cho had spent suffering the curse during the Death Eaters attacks of four weeks ago. It was just too dangerous, but they would all be armed to some point if it happened to them for real.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny all were pushing themselves harder than ever against the Unspeakable. They knew the strength gained from this made them stronger in their ability to fight their way into someone’s mind.
With the training the DA was doing, if one of them cracked, and their mind split from the effects of the curse, they were making it harder for a Healer to save them. Harry and the others knew they might have to try and save one of their friends. They owed them the best they could possibly do.
Hermione was pushing herself more than any of them, even scaring Ginny with her intensity. Her success at helping Cho and the others had convinced her she could do more. She had even talked about trying to help Neville’s parents, gone so far as to convince Professor Dumbledore and Healer Marchbanks to let her try. Harry, Ron and Ginny had argued with her for hours against it. It was the closest Ron and she had come to a real fight in over a year.
Neville, finally put a stop to it. He was his parent’s guardian now, and he forbid Hermione to go near them. He had even gone so far as to put a standing order in at the hospital that Hermione was not allowed to see his parents without him in attendance also. Harry continued to let his mind wander, letting it take him away from the picture of Ron behind him.
Most of the DA had progressed to the point that they could cast a shield of sufficient strength to deflect the best stunning spell Hermione could muster when she was not fighting for her life. They were working their way up, Hermione first, followed by Ron, then Ginny and last Harry.
The people who progressed the fastest seemed to be in direct correlation to how much they had been hurt in the Death Eater attacks. Cho, despite spending more time in the hospital than anyone, was the first to start training against Harry.
Occlumency and Legilimency where going fairly well too. With all of the DA being able to erect at least some form of defense. Harry was really quiet astounded by everyone’s progress. When he, Ron, Hermione and Ginny talked with Professor Dumbledore about it, Dumbledore had told them there were two reasons for the progress. One, they were all excellent teachers, and two.
“It is a question of motivation.” Dumbledore had commented. The words rang in Harry’s mind, along with a few others. Harry had new motivation now too.
“Harry?”
“I’m still here, Bridgette.”
“Happy Birthday, Harry.”
Harry did not know why it was Bridgette among all of the carnage of the attacks that stayed with him. Well, he did to some extent. She had been special to him. Even though they both had agreed they were not the one for each other, they had both really tried. Had both, Harry realized now, wanted their relationship to succeed, and they had shared a lot.
Harry knew all of Bridgette’s hopes and dreams. She loved transfiguration, and was very good at it, better even than Hermione, because it required effort for her. She hoped to teach, and Professor McGonagall had taken her under her wing. He knew she wanted children, had even thought about names for a boy if she had one. She liked Eric. Now she was gone, her life taken before it started.
Harry blinked back a tear. He could see her perfectly in his mind, he frequently caught himself remembering the two kisses they had shared, and found himself crying because she would never know what it felt like when you kissed the person meant for you.
Harry had been asked to speak at her funeral by her mother. He had agreed and asked if she would give him a picture of Bridgette. He could not even remember what he had said at the funeral, but her mother and father had thanked him.
Bridgette’s picture now sat on the table by the fireplace in the sitting area of his flat. At least once a day he, Ginny, Ron and Hermione would stop and honor her last request, that they never forget her.
Harry came to his senses when he heard Ron crash to the floor after being released from the Cruciatus curse. He quickly wiped his eyes again before turning around and walking over to help him up. Ron looked terrible.
“How did I do?” he asked, his voice weak from the strain of the training session.
“Two hours twenty four minutes and fifteen seconds,” the unspeakable replied.
“Damn!” Ron said angrily under his breath. His goal by the end of the week was two and a half hours, and when you only gained a few minutes each session it was going to be tight.
“Be glad it is not your night to cast the curse on the rest of the DA,” Harry remarked handing him a glass of water.
“Where are our wives?”
“They went to the potions vault. Hermione was in tears watching you,” Harry replied.
“You and Hermione are going to start the meeting tonight right?”
“Yes, Ginny has to train against the Cruciatus curse yet today, and then you and her have to do whatever it is that you’re working on,” Harry replied. The door to the flat opened, and Ginny walked in followed by Hermione.
“Hi, Mione,” Ron said to her, meeting her halfway across the floor.
“Hi, Love, you’re ok?”
“Better than I will be tomorrow when it is your turn to do this,” he replied, kissing her on her forehead.
“Hello, Potter,” Ginny whispered as she snuggled into him.
“Hi, Gin,” Harry thought to her. Ginny’s eyes flashed at him.
“Behave yourself, Potter,” she replied.
“You're no fun,” Harry said with a grin. Ginny flashed him a smile and gave him a quick kiss before she turned to the Unspeakable.
“I guess we should get started.” Harry flinched.
“Whenever you're ready, Ginny,” the Unspeakable replied.
Ginny regarded the man for a moment. She knew nothing about him except that Dumbledore trusted him. Almost everything about him was average. Average height, average weight, he wasn’t unattractive for a middle-aged man she thought; yet he wasn’t attractive either. Straight brown hair, slightly balding, a decent smile when he showed it, and eyes that appeared uninterested in anything, yet she knew, took in everything.
Perhaps, because he appeared to be so average was the reason he was so impressive. He was, in truth she had learned, very smart with knowledge of more dark curses and hexes than she thought possible. He was extremely competent at dueling, as she had seen the other day when he took out Fred, George and Lee Jordan at the same time in a demonstration for the DA. And while he was no match for herself, Harry, Ron or Hermione, he was quite powerful.
“You know, would it be that big a deal for us to know your name?” she asked. The man looked at her and the others for a moment.
“You may call me Mark,” he replied with a smile.
“Is that your real name, sir?” Ron asked.
“It could be, then again maybe not,” the man replied, still smiling at them.
“Mark, how do you put up with this? It is killing us to do this to our friends,” Hermione asked him timidly. Mark looked at her, considering the question.
“I’m surprised it took you this long to ask,” he finally said to her.
“Are you going to tell us then?” Harry asked, after a few moments of quiet.
“We’ll, as you all know you really can’t use the pensive as much as you would like. You need all of those memories so you don't really hurt someone. I know I am causing you four lots of pain. And like you, I hear the screams of your friends when I sleep too. I just have the ability to accept that I am really helping you even though it hurts you. It also helps that you four don’t scream. In a way, you are all doing this to yourselves, any one of you can stop at any time and no one will think less of you for it.” Harry and the others turned his answer over in their minds.
“Have you trained against this?” Ginny asked.
“Yes, there is no way I could do it without knowing the pain it causes. All Aurors and Unspeakables train against this. We do it to each other, following the same procedures we have been using. It takes years of practice for a new Auror or Unspeakable to get to the point where I am casting the spell at them, not because I can’t weaken it, but because it is a waste of my time.
“When your Headmaster first told me there were four students who needed to train against this, and he needed me to do it. I knew, from the meeting where Harry first showed us the phoenix charm, it had to be you four. I don’t relish casting the curse at you, but I simply had to see if you were capable of what he said.
“The Minister was sure I would be back in a day telling her that it would be years before you were ready to fight me. I tended to agree with her, but as I am still here, you have proved us both wrong and your Headmaster correct.
“And do you weaken the spell for us?” Harry asked.
“No, even Hermione, who is the weakest, was taking everything I could give her within three days.”
“It will be harder if a Death Eater gets hold of us, won’t it?” Ron asked.
“I’m afraid so, but like your friends who train against you, you will find even more strength in that situation. Look at Miss Chang, she fought the Death Eaters for more than an hour, yet she has trouble against you four after fifteen minutes, and you do not generate the pain that a Death Eater does. That is a function of doing what you must. I would venture a Death Eater getting hold of one of you four would die of old age before you quit fighting them,” Mark finished with a grin.
“That might be pushing it a little,” Ron remarked dryly.
“Yes, it is….but then after watching your training sessions with the DA, I doubt any Death Eater could take one of you, certainly not in a one on one fight. Hermione, who is the weakest of you, without a wand is worth three Mad-Eye Moodys. While there is more to being an Auror, or Unspeakable than an ability to fight, most of the members of the DA are at least as competent as the most junior Aurors in that department. Dumbledore’s Army is truly that. And I am not joking in the least when I say it.”
Harry moved to the couch and sat down as he turned Mark’s words over in his mind.
“I have a question or two for you four if you do not mind,” Mark said after a few minutes.
“You can ask, we may or may not answer,” Ginny replied, her voice had taken on a hint of warning.
“Fair enough,” Mark replied.
“Go ahead,” Harry said to him.
“I notice the scars on you hands, and you, Harry, have those scars on your arm, what are they from?” Harry had to stop himself from smiling at what he was sure was a lead in question to what Mark really wanted to ask.
“The scars on our hands are from the Blood Oath of Brotherhood and Sisterhood. The puncture wound on my arm is from a basilisk fang. This scar is where Peter Pettigrew drew the blood from me for Voldemort’s rebirthing. The other scar on my arm….I cut myself,” Harry replied. Mark nodded at Harry’s reply.
“My second question,” Mark asked, looking directly in each of their eyes, turning to Ginny last and holding her in his gaze, “is why do four children, train to fight Voldemort, why do any army of children follow you, why does your Headmaster allow unforgivable curses to be cast at you, and allow you to cast them at others?”
“I should think after the attacks against our friends, that the answer to that is obvious,” Hermione replied quickly hoping to keep Ginny in a reasonable state.
“Humor me,” Mark replied, still holding his eyes on Ginny. He knew it was ultimately her who would decide if he got an answer.
“Husband, he asks too much,” Ginny said icily, not backing away from Mark in the least. Ginny feared only one person, and Mark was not him, she was making sure he knew it. Harry considered the question and Ginny’s concern. If she did not want him to tell someone then he wouldn’t.
“Mark could sign the DA creed that we all did after the attacks,” Ron suggested. “Because he would then be bound as the rest of us are. Agreeing that willful betrayal is punishable by death, he could then be given the same information the rest of the DA has.”
“Ginny?” Harry asked, as he carefully watched Mark. His face had only twitched slightly at Ron’s statement of punishment by death.
“If he signs, I will accept him having that information,” Ginny replied.
“Hermione, you are the first keeper of the creed who lives,” Harry said quietly to her. Hermione waved her wand in the air mumbling an. incantation as she did.
“Ginny, you are the second keeper of the creed who lives,” Ron said to his sister. Ginny waved her wand in the air and quietly said another incantation. After she finished, flames formed into words in the air in front of Mark.
IF WE WISH TO LEAVE OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS WE MAY, BUT OUR MEMORY WILL BE ERASED AND WE WILL FOREVER BE WATCHED.
WE ARE AT WAR. OUR ENEMY IS VOLDEMORT, AND ANY WHO FOLLOW HIM. WE PLEDGE OUR LIVES TO THE EFFORT, AND TO THE PROTECTION OF OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS NAMED BELOW. WILLFULL BETRAYAL OF OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS WILL LEAVE US MARKED FOR THEM TO SEE. OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS MAY PUNISH US FOR OUR BETRAYAL.
DEATH MAY BE THE PRICE.
WE
ARE DUMBLEDORES ARMY.
“If you sign your name, the names of your brothers and sisters will appear. You know most of them already. In case you're wondering, the name Albus Dumbledore is one of them,” Harry said quietly to Mark.
“The creed will know if you do not use your real name,” Ginny added. Marks face twitched slightly again.
“And your loyalty will be put to the test. You should know that the Minister’s name is not on the list. The Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore’s Army are the head in the fight against Voldemort, not the Ministry of Magic,” Hermione added. Harry could see Mark considering this information.
“And if you think for second that I won’t kill you or you are even capable of defending yourself against me you are sadly mistaken,” Ginny said quietly, her threat hanging in the air.
“You are not capable of defending yourself against me, and I am the weakest of us,” Hermione added her own threat to Ginny’s.
“And how would I sign?” Mark asked.
“Do you really think we believe you don’t know how?” Ron replied.
Mark looked at them all. He had not expected something like this, but the more he thought about it he had to ask himself why he hadn’t. People did not train against the Cruciatus curse for fun. They did it because they felt like there was a good chance it would be used against them. A number of the children, as he called them, he was dealing with lately had already suffered the fate.
Friends of these four had been singled out by Voldemort and his Death Eaters and killed. Not with a quick blow, but slowly tortured to death. One, eighteen year old girl had suffered the effects of the Cruciatus curse for more than an hour without giving the Death Eaters the information they wanted. Mark doubted he was that strong.
As for fighting Hermione or Ginny, he had seen too many training sessions of them fighting without wands to even consider it and option. If either one decided to kill him, he knew he was as good as dead. Mark pulled out his wand and wrote his name in the air beneath the creed.
When he finished writing his name, the names of all the DA members appeared in flaming red letters underneath the statement. His name moved through the air to the bottom of the list. A second list of names appeared to the right of the first. Each of these names was also in red flames and was crossed out with an X that flamed black. To the right of each of these names, in black flamed letters, the words-
-floated ominously. There were five names so far.
Bridgette Weasley
Luna Lovegood
Seamus Finigan
Dennis Creevey
Collin Creevey
Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny all knew it was foolish, but they hoped desperately that the second list would not be added to. Ron spoke first.
“The DA began, in our fifth year, Ginny’s fourth. It was supposed to be a club. Something to help us pass our O.W.L.s because the Ministry stuck us with that troll, Umbridge, for a Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor.
“Hermione and I, well mostly Hermione, recruited Harry to teach us. He was good at the defense stuff, the best in the school in only his fourth year. Umbridge had us banned before we started. We did it anyways as a protest more than anything. You remember Dumbledore got sacked about a year and a half ago now?” Ron asked pausing to see Mark’s answer. Mark nodded at him.
“Someone in the group at the time ratted us out,” Ginny picked up. “Harry was the leader, and it looked like he was going to get kicked out of school, but Dumbledore took the fall instead. None of us knew at the time how important it really was. You must know all about the incident at the Ministry with Voldemort, and how Dumbledore regained his position as Headmaster?” Ginny asked. Mark nodded again.
“Harry found out that night, why Voldemort tried to kill him as a baby,” Hermione picked up the story now, writing out the first three lines of the first prophecy in the air.
“There was a prophecy made before he was born. A Death Eater overheard the first two lines of the prophecy and told Voldemort about it. Voldemort spent the first year of Harry’s life hunting for him and tried to kill him because of the prophecy. The mark is on his forehead,” Mark looked at Harry. Harry saw his eyes grow wide as comprehension washed over him.
“There is more to the prophecy, but to protect me and you, I won’t tell you what it says,” Harry said. “The four of us restarted the DA this summer to help me train to fight against him. When we got back to school, we restarted the DA with everyone. We still didn't really understand what we were doing. And, we found out about a second prophecy.” Harry stood up and wrote out the first three parts of the second prophecy in the air.
“It should be easy to figure out. I am the equal. Ron is the first friend, Hermione is the second, and Ginny is the third.”
“What does the prophecy say about, Ginny?” Mark asked when he finished reading it. Harry smiled and shook his head.
“I am afraid that, like the exact wording of the first prophecy is too dangerous to give out.”
“I see,” Mark replied.
“So,” Ron said, “the short answer to your question is, the four of us children, Hermione, Ginny, and myself, will help Harry defeat Voldemort. Harry will deliver the final blow, but any of us could be the one who makes that blow possible. That, is why we train.
“None of us really understood what we were doing until Voldemort attacked our friends July 31st. That was the day the DA quit playing and declared war. Until then being a traitor would only result in some crazy hex that Hermione came up with. We don’t know how Voldemort found out who all the DA members were, but no one from the DA was responsible, because the hex did not kick in,” Ron finished.
“Even so, Cho came into the first meeting after the attacks and gave us this,” Hermione said, pointing at the creed and list of names. “She didn’t have to convince anyone but us. The rest of the DA all insist it is their choice to fight against Voldemort, and that one of them could very easily make it possible for Harry to deliver the final blow.
“We argued against this creed, we trust them, but they all said they would sign it without us, it would bind them the same. So we agreed and signed also. We can’t really tell you why they follow us, but they do. They were all attacked because Voledmort was hunting for us. We don’t want their protection, but they insist on giving it. We are the best Dumbledore can offer them as teachers, so we continue to train them,” Hermione finished.
“You are now bound by the creed, anything you can offer to train us you must. In return, we and the rest of your brothers and sisters will do the same for you,” Ginny said. “Which brings us back to you casting the Cruciatus curse at me.” Hermione caught the color draining from Harry. It was her turn to rescue him, as he had done for her when Ron was training earlier that day.
“Love, you stay with Ginny. Harry and I will go start the DA meeting, hopefully by the time you two get there; we'll be done with the Cruciatus curse that way you and Ginny don’t have to listen to the screaming today.”
“This isn’t much better,” Ron grumbled.
“Maybe not for you, but it is for Harry.” Ron sighed.
“Ok, Minoe. I’ll see you later.”
“Thanks, Ron,” Harry mumbled, as Hermione started to pull him out of the room.
“Make sure you stick exactly to each person’s chart,” Mark said to them.
“We will, I have no desire to do this any longer than I have too,” Hermione replied.
“Me either,” Harry added quietly, as Hermione closed the door behind them.