Chapter 41

Harry couldn't help but feel tense as Amelia's magical bracelet rang, and her face told a story of distress. "It's Susan. She had triggered her alarm. There's something going on. I need to save her," she said rapidly, showing a lack of nerves unfitting for the head of Magical Britain's law enforcement arm, though Harry didn't blame her for it. It was her family, after all. There was a reason that muggle procedures on hostage situations didn't allow people related to hostages to make decisions.

She tried to dash toward the entrance, not even bothering to draw her wand yet, like she would kill attackers by her own hands. Just because he didn't blame her for her didn't mean that he would let her run in distraction and get killed. So, he had done something that would have convinced everyone else that he was crazy.

He slapped Amelia.

She turned to him, anger blazing, but it was better than the blind panic moments ago. "Damn it, you're an ex-Auror, you should know that just running forward without a plan would only get Susan killed. We need to make a plan. First, can you tap into wards to detect people inside, or get their real-time location?"

"Detection yes, real-time location, no," Amelia rapidly answered, cold professionalism appearing on her face after the momentary loss of composure. She waved her wand and closed her eyes for a second. "There's only two Auror guards and Susan inside, no one else," she said. "Imperius," she gasped.

"That, or traitors," Harry answered. "They probably have Susan under Imperius or unconscious, probably waiting for your arrival. Do you think they'll ask for your surrender?"

"No, even if I surrender, they will still kill us both. They would have a better plan."

Harry frowned for a moment, his mind working lightning fast with the assistance of his occlumency. "Maybe they will take down the ward stone, leaving you exposed."

"Makes sense, but even then two of them could never take me down," Amelia said.

"What if they have reinforcements waiting on the wings, ready to pounce. A death eater team would change the odds, maybe even the Snakeface himself." Harry frowned. "How strong are the wards? Enough to keep them out?"

"We can keep them enough until the reinforcements arrive," Amelia answered.

Harry nodded, ready to move, then a sudden thought appeared in his mind. "How sure are you about reinforcements arriving?" Harry asked. Amelia turned to him, questioning. Harry clarified. "How sure are you that Dumbledore wouldn't prefer you dead?" Harry didn't ask that question lightly, but after the reveal of the prophecy, combined with the weirdly nonsensical actions of the Order itself, Harry started to doubt that Dumbledore had other aims. If his actions in other years were any indicator, probably a very complicated plan required a lot of things going correct.

He didn't think that he was a Dark Lord, or using the situation to elevate himself further, but Harry also noticed that Dumbledore's pathologic avoidance of taking action that might result in death unless forced. From what he had seen, Amelia was very much the opposite. And from a distorted perspective, it could be argued that letting Amelia die would actually result in fewer deaths.

Harry would have liked to say that it was nonsense, but Dumbledore was the guy who had the genius idea of hiding the World's most precious object that bequeathed both immortality and unlimited riches in a school full of children, despite fully knowing that Voldie was after it. He even let Quirrel act with impunity despite it being obvious from his perspective that he was Voldemort's contact —after all, unlike Harry, he had Snape as his agent rather than a distraction.

Amelia finally answered after ten long seconds. "Not enough to bet Susan's life," she answered, her expression steely. "We need to sneak and take them down."

"No, they still don't know you're here, and they will not touch Susan to keep the element of surprise. You should return to Ministry to gather reinforcements, while I sneak and scout." Harry pulled his invisibility cloak. "Give me access to wards, and tell me where's the wardstone."

"Can you manage the wards?" Amelia asked, and Harry nodded. It was one of the things he had studied in detail in the Room of Requirements, expecting a similar outcome. Amelia didn't look convinced, but she was rather short of options, so after a careful examination, she nodded.

She pulled a pendant and passed it to him, and cast a long, complicated spell. Harry felt the sudden presence of the wards smashing against his mind, forcing a deluge of new information, enough to make the world spin. Harry could have pushed them down and only access the most rudimentary aspects, but a more comprehensive aspect might be the difference between death and victory, more than enough to make a momentary discomfort worth it.

"Can't you even handle a basic connection?" Amelia asked in a panic, clearly trying to come up with a new plan on the fly.

"Give me a second, a full connection takes time," Harry answered, like he wasn't doing something most grown wizards would take hours, maybe days to achieve in a blink of an eye, mostly thanks to his exceptional Occlumency, but no small part due to his power, something he had noticed when he was young. After all, if a normal wizard could have easily driven a hundred dementors away, there was no reason to get scared of them… A normal wizard could barely manage one.

"A full connection," Amelia repeated, dumbfounded.

"There's a reason Voldie is trying to kill me and Dumbledore is doing his best to keep me under his thumb," Harry answered, not wanting to waste time talking about his abilities. Yes, Susan was a precious hostage therefore should be safe, but he didn't want to bet her life against the logical capabilities of a Death Eater who was stupid enough to follow an insane genocidal megalomaniac. "Are you ready?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Amelia said. "Take the two down, then give me fifteen minutes before lowering the wards, only to raise them up once Death Eaters enter. Then I'll teleport with reinforcements," Amelia answered. She was quick to change from survival to a deadly trap. Harry nodded with respect. After all, he was smart enough to realize that it was the approach that was required to win a war.

"Don't take any of Dumbledore's supporters," Harry noted, not wanting to take any risk just in case.

Amelia frowned at the thought. "Do you know who are they? I know Tonks must be one, as she's Moody's student, and Moody is definitely on Dumbledore's side. Arthur Weasley is a definite one."

Harry thought for a moment. "Kingsley, Hestia, Diddle…" he started before quickly listing two dozen names, all the people he had seen in the Order meetings last summer. With each name, Amelia's frown deepened. "That's a lot more than I expected," she said. She raised her wand, ready to apparate, but with a sudden thought, she pulled a parchment and quickly wrote something, magically signed, and passed to him. It was a brief order signed by her, deputizing Harry to use lethal force. "Just in case I don't survive," she added and apparated.

Harry nodded in appreciation even as he dashed. He understood that it had a secondary objective. Amelia was guaranteeing that, once she came into power, she couldn't use the results of the battle against Harry as a political tool.

He appreciated the thought.

"So, that's how working with a competent ally feels like," Harry murmured even as he wrapped his invisibility cloak around and dashed, following Amelia's direction toward the wardstone. As he moved, most of his attention was on the wards, processing more details about additional options. Ideally, it was a completely unnecessary action, as the plan was clear. With additional reinforcements and the surprise factor, taking down the ambush should be trivial.

Well, he thought that the first year, but instead of Quirrel, he faced Voldemort. The second year, the surprise part was relatively simpler, Just a mind-erasing teacher. The third-year was Dementors, and the fourth year was the snakeface himself. This year, he didn't have anything comparable.

He wasn't stupid enough to bet against the probability that things going horribly out of control. Having full control of the wards, including the defensive tricks, would help. And as he connected the wards on a deeper level, he couldn't help but whistle with respect. Bones family was certainly conservative when it came to their own protection. He would have said paranoid, but as the situation showed, it wasn't paranoia if they were actually trying to get you…

When he arrived at the room that contained the wardstone, solving the issue was almost trivial. A middle-aged man was standing in the middle of the room, his wand pointed at the wardstone, his eyes locked on a small stone, probably some kind of signal for him to cast a blasting charm. A silent stunner took him down, then Harry took his wand, and enervated him.

"Wha-" the man stammered, but it was the only sound he was able to make before Harry slammed into his mind with the most aggressive legimency probe he had ever used, breaking his occlumency shield in an instant. He scoured his mind quickly to see if there was any relevant information, only to come negative. Apparently, the guy wasn't even a death eater, but he was after ten-thousand galleon pay promised.

"Idiot," Harry murmured as he stunned him once more, then stole his wand —as a second wand might be convenient for the battle itself, and more considering it didn't have the trace—, and cast a rope to contain him. Better safe than sorry, he decided.

When he left the room, he activated the protections of the wardstone room. Due to their closeness to the wardstone, they couldn't be tied to it, but it didn't mean they couldn't be externally powered. It wouldn't last more than a couple of hours, but it was enough for the battle to conclude.

With that resolved, Harry dashed to upstairs, casting several silent detection spells to find Susan. Though, not integrating a real-time location detector to the wards was simply stupid, Harry decided.

After a brief search, Harry found two life signatures in the living room. And since the wards confirmed that other than himself, there were only two people in the room. Once again he silently appeared. This one proved himself smarter, as Harry felt himself passing through a rudimentary detection ward. Unluckily for him, Harry's cloak had managed to conceal him from much stronger and much more complicated wards. So, once again, he was completely unprepared for Harry's stunners.

Susan was bound and helpless, but Harry still decided to use legimency to make sure she wasn't being mind-controlled. Normally, it would have been difficult, but just a simple assessment of the last ten minutes revealed no such thing, which was the only time they could use Imperius. After making sure, he pulled the cloak off. "Harry!" Susan exclaimed happily, and when he dispelled the ropes that were keeping her tied, she raised her arms, preparing for a hug.

"We don't have time," Harry said. "We have ten minutes to prepare a defense," Harry said. "Where's your wand?"

Susan pointed at the figure lying unconscious.

Harry moved to him and took Susan's wand from his pocket before passing it to her. "Start transfiguring small animals, the more, the better, then pass their control to me," Harry said. It wasn't a source of damage, but it would doubtlessly create a lot of chaos among the attackers. Normally a swarm of transfigured creatures was not the best strategy, but Harry trusted his mental abilities enough to handle it, especially if he utilized them in waves.

He turned his attention back to the figure lying on the floor. Seeing that he had three small balls of marble to signal various things, he decided to play it safe and in addition to taking his wand, he also cast a petrification charm on him before waking him up. He managed to resist Harry's mental assault for almost half a minute, making him several times more competent than the mercenary below. The reason, Harry learned moments later, discovering him to be a mid-level death eater who had committed countless crimes during the first war, but also had the hobby of kidnapping random muggles, and watch the news as muggles struggled to find his victim, only to fail year after year, enjoying their helplessness as much as he enjoyed torturing the target.

Even then, Harry didn't want to kill him, which felt like such a final option. However, he also remembered that it took less than a week for Voldemort to save the latest batch of Death Eaters captured in the ministry battle. "Susan, this is enough transfiguration, go hide in your room and activate the defenses," Harry ordered.

"I can fight-" she tried to complain, but Harry cut her off.

He could have tried to order her off, of course, but he knew her enough that she would probably try to sneak back to the fight. "I know. That's why I want you at the rear guard. Your aunt will come with reinforcements, so we don't need another frontline combatant. But I expect dementors to be a part of the assault. I want you to wait until the fight starts, then cast a Patronus preemptively. Having one ready to give the Aurors a few seconds until they can cast their own protection would work wonders." Also, just to make sure, he reinforced his explanation with a mental probe.

"I won't disappoint you," she said as she dashed out, leaving Harry alone in the living room. Harry used the opportunity to delve deeper into his target's mind, learning the objective of the signals. Apparently, the blue orb was the all-clear signal, but only if it was destroyed by a unique variant of blasting spell. It took Harry two repeats to master it.

He checked the time, and saw he still had several minutes. He started carving explosive runes on every piece of furniture, connecting them mentally. Combined with the transfigurations and the wards, it was starting to strain him rather badly, but he chose to play safe. He even carved several runes on the unconscious Death Eater, just in case the battle had turned badly.

That took the rest of his time, and he blasted the stone that communicated all-clear signal, put the death eater on a couch like he was napping —ridiculous, but it might confuse the death eaters for a second, which would be helpful, before moving to the corner and wrapping himself with his invisibility cloak.

He took a deep breath and lowered the wards for the living room. After going all the trouble of filling the room with traps, he didn't want it to go to waste.

Eight Death Eaters in full regalia apparated into the room, looking confused. Or more accurately, seven of them looked around confused while one of them suddenly took a step forward and cast a transfiguration spell, creating hundreds of needles and sending it across the room in a way that would cover the whole room, forcing Harry to shield himself, revealing his position.

Harry felt the rage explode in his heart, not because he was discovered, but because as the Death Eater stepped forward, his cloak billowed very distinctively