The Weight of the World

Chapter 24 - The Unspeakables

Harry and Hermione watched as Moody and the others huddled quietly and made some last minute plans dealing with their attack. After tying up some loose ends they one by one apparated, until it was only Ron's dad, Mr. Fudge, Wormtail and Rooney left there with them.

Harry watched as Fudge and Arthur Weasley shook hands, then he saw the Minister disappear with a pop. Mr. Weasley came over to the both of them to say goodbye.

"You two just try to relax. These guys know what they're doing," he said as he put his arm around Hermione and shook Harry's hand.

"You all be careful too," Harry said.

"We will be Harry. We've had to do these types of things before. The Aurors and Unspeakables will be doing most of the dangerous work. We will just be staying at the main entrance with Dumbledore to stop any that might try to escape. Once they start losing, and figure out they can't apparate out of there, they'll come running blindly towards us to try to get away, it won't be too dangerous, not for us anyway," Mr. Weasley said.

"If you see Lucius there sir, don't hesitate,” Harry said swiftly.

It took a short while before Mr. Weasley knew what Harry had meant by that. He had never really heard Harry ever talk ill of anyone, or suggest anything bad happen to someone, but he could tell that Harry was far from kidding, and he knew exactly what he had meant by it.

He didn't respond to Harry, just nodded his head at him, said goodbye to the both and then stood back and disappeared.

It took Hermione a bit longer to really get the meaning of what Harry had meant by 'don't hesitate', but when she did, it surprised her to hear Harry talk this way. As merciful as he had been, even with Wormtail when he first discovered that he had been the reason for his parent's deaths, made her surprised that he obviously didn't have any of the mercy left for Draco's dad. Harry just wanted him dead.

Rooney made his way over to the two of them and said hello. He was a large man. He looked to be in fantastic physical shape even though he looked to be in his fifties. He had short hair that was very black with some splattered gray and it was extremely messy and pushed down, almost as though he had been wearing the hood to his cloak for several hours straight.

Harry shook his hand and felt the tight grip of the man's fingers as they almost wrapped around his hand twice.

"Nice to meet you Mr. Potter. I actually worked with your dad for a short while when he was younger,” he said.

"Really?" Harry said, "What did you two work on?"

"Your father was training as an Unspeakable until he and your mom decided to get married. After that he couldn't risk it with a family. It wasn't that we really worked together, I mainly just taught him for a while,” Rooney said.

"My father was an Unspeakable?" Harry asked.

"He was just training to be one. Not many have what it takes, but your father did. He began right out of school, but your mother made him think otherwise. We can't have families you know. He ended up choosing your mom over the work. It was the right decision," he said smiling at Harry.

"Why can't Unspeakables have families?" Harry asked.

"Doesn't mix well Harry. It used to be allowed, but not anymore. Ministry had to do away with it. Unspeakables' families were getting tortured and such. We have many enemies. Plus, it's not easy trying to have a relationship with an Unspeakable. Never home..And when you're home, you're always thinking about work. Just not the right life for family,” he said.

"That sounds very lonely,” Hermione said.

Rooney looked at her for a second then gave her a smile. "It can be Ms. Granger, for some at least. But someone has to do the job. We can't not have them you know. Sacrifices are made by some to ensure that peace and security are enjoyed by others. Just the way it is."

Hermione wondered why anyone would risk that much and not have anyone to share it with. She looked into Rooney's eyes when he talked and saw kindness. She knew he was right, someone had to do these things, and she felt grateful that he and the others were out protecting them.

"Harry, why don't you tell me a bit more about that crew you took out yesterday? I heard one story from Black and one a bit different from Moody, just thought you could shed some light on it for me."

"Errr.. okay. It wasn't much really,” Harry said reluctantly. Then he continued to tell the story. Every few words Hermione would interrupt and add important and amazing things that he had left out as she heard them explained by Mrs. Livingston. Harry was obviously trying to tone the story down a bit. He felt that after people heard that story, they didn't look at him the same way. He spent a lot of his life wishing people would treat him as a grown-up and now for some weird reason, he wanted to be looked at as just a normal kid again.

After he was finished telling the story, Harry asked Rooney to tell him as much as he could about his dad and the training they had done together. Hermione made tea for them all and they sat around the cave listening to Rooney tell stories about Harry's dad, and all of the tricks they always played on him and the other new recruits when they first got there.

Moody and the eight others behind him made their way through the DarkForest. Even though it was the in middle of the day the overhead coverage from the trees kept much clean light from getting down to the floor so the visibility wasn't great. They made their way through the thick brush, making clearings with their wands until they came to one of the main paths. These paths weren't there because of the creatures that lived in the forest, and they weren't there because people made a habit of traveling through the forest day after day. They had been created by Hagrid. The fact that Hagrid made frequent trips into the forest for different reasons, either to gather things that were found here for the school, or to visit Aragog, or the Centaurs, he had made many paths throughout the forest. With his weight and the size of his feet, and Fang always tagging along, it didn't take long before a clear cut path to form. Once you found one of these paths, it was easy to follow them back to the outside of Hagrid's cabin.

Moody stopped at the start of the path and signaled for the Aurors to gather in close. When they did so, he pulled out the Marauder's map and studied it a bit then spoke again.

"There doesn't seem to be anyone outside of the walls at all. When we get to the clearing, everyone throw on your invisibility cloaks and head to our entrance. When we get there, we'll stop for another map reading. I will pull my cloak off and show each of you your assignments. Then we wait for word. Remember, these aren't just normal dark wizards mates, these are Death Eaters. It's been many years since we've had to face a proper lot of them so make sure you are all practice vigilance! Now let's get moving."

Dumbledore and his numbers were small, but so was their responsibility. It was Sirius, Lupin, Mr. Weasley, Archer, and Fletcher that were led by Dumbledore. All were wearing dark cloaks and all looked very formidable. But now that they had the full support of the Ministry and the teams of Aurors and Unspeakables, there wasn't a need for Dumbledore and the others to put themselves in unnecessary danger. Dumbledore was getting very old, and Lupin, Black and Weasley weren't real Aurors. They all were the first to stand up and fight against Voldemort when they discovered that he had returned, and they had already been risking their lives, but they each knew their place now. Dumbledore's responsibilities were to ensure that his students were safe, and to help the Ministry by lending the use of his knowledge, not his power, Mr. Weasley had a large family that counted on him, Lupin had his friends, and Sirius had Harry. And he could now look after Harry properly. He would now be able to be a true father figure for him, something he had not had since his father died. He would also be able to hold a place in society again, to live as a proud wizard instead of a convicted murderer.

The group took their places, well hidden, at the front gates of the castle grounds. Dumbledore made sure that they were all alert and ready for the attack to begin.

"Remember everyone, do not take unnecessary risks. Do what you know to do and this situation will remedy itself," he said.

Dumbledore then made his tall, pointy, wizard hat disappear and pulled the hood of his dark cloak over his head. It was at this moment, that Dumbledore looked borderline scary. It was seeing him this way that left no doubt why Voldemort had always feared him. The others pulled their hoods up as well, wands in hands at the ready.

NigelJax, the Auror, and his team of Unspeakables slipped out of the Whomping Willow entrance. One of the Unspeakables held the spot on the tree while the others silently cloaked themselves and made their way to the base of the castle. Jax was the last out and pulled his cloak over his body and disappeared with the others.

"To the side entrance... Be silent, wait for the order,” he said softly.

Hurst and his team got to the end of the passage way that led them directly into the castle. Hurst knew that his team would be the first to come into contact with the enemy, but this did not deter him from wanting his team at this position. He had studied Moody's map last night and watched as the Death Eaters made their patrols. He knew exactly where they would be, and how many would be there. They counted nineteen names on the map and he knew that they would have the numbers on their side, but more importantly, they had the element of surprise.

Hurst opened the passage way and let his team slip by him silently until they had all passed. He wasn't worried yet because he knew that they hadn't been patrolling this particular section of the castle from what they could see on the map.

He silently pulled his team into a classroom and huddled them together.

"This is it. We start it. We take out the first set, and then we signal Dumbledore from the window. We leave this room cloaked. Every pair has their assigned man, take him down quietly and move to your position. If you run into any problems or surprises take the usual measures. The other teams will follow. Don't try to do more than your share here. Team one and two clean this area, wait for my signal, and then hold while the other teams move into position. Any questions?"

Everyone was ready. No one had a single look of fear or even anxiety in their eyes. They weren't even breathing heavily. These teams were made to take out Death Eaters, and some had to fight the smiles off of their faces as they knew their time had come.

Hurst nodded at them, and they all cloaked themselves. The cloaks these teams possessed were invisibility cloaks, but they were more than just that. The team's cloaks were coded with a very special type of magic that made them completely invisible to everyone except their own group. The cloaks worked against smell, sound and even extraordinary magical items such as Moody's magical eye. They wouldn't even show up on the map while wearing them. The teams were non-existent while they wore these cloaks. The only down side to the cloaks were that magic could not be performed from inside of them. But this meant that they were only detectable for a split second just before they took out their targets.

The first two teams moved silently through the castle. According to the map the first two Death Eaters should be posted just down the first corridor. They moved silently into their positions.

The two Death Eaters were sitting down talking about betting on Quidditch games. One was arguing that he was jinxed because every time he won the bet on who would score the first goal, he would always lose the bet on who would capture the snitch; therefore he never won any money. He was explaining to the other that he thought it was a conspiracy of some kind.

"I just don't see how that can happen three times in a row," the burley Death Eater said. "It always makes me feel like cursing someone when I think I'm going home with extra money in my pocket, and then at the last minute I never do."

The other one just laughed at him. "You think the whole world is one big conspiracy. You used to think that Ludo Bagman was throwing games for the Wasps remember? It's always something with you. Where the hell is that house-elf with my wine? I swear next time I'm down there in the kitchen, I'm throwing one of them in the oven..... Did you hear that? Sounds like he's coming up the stairs now," The second death eater said as he walked towards the stair well.

A few seconds later he came back, "It wasn't him. I swear I think their doing this on purpose,” he stopped. His friend was gone.

"You run off to the bathroom again? How many times is that today? I swear if Lucius knew how many times you've left your post today he'd prob.."

The Death Eater fell to the floor unconscious.

The Unspeakable reached down and pulled the small object off of the Death Eater's neck and placed it back into a pouch. He then pulled the cloak back around him and disappeared.

"Sir, can you talk to me about what's going on at the castle today?" Harry asked Rooney.

"They are taking it back Harry."

"Sir, when you say taking it back, do you mean they're going in there to kill everyone?"

"No Harry, the Generals all know what needs to be done, sometimes this means killing, but those occasions are very rare, they only kill when they feel their own lives are in danger, but that doesn't happen too many times."

"Sir, if they are going in there fighting Death Eaters, you're saying that they don't feel like their lives are in danger?"

"Harry, even though I am a General, that doesn't mean you have to call me sir. Call me Albert. Hermione, you can do the same," he said smiling to them.

"Now let me answer your question Harry. First of all, you are a good example."

"Me?" Harry interrupted.

"Yes you Harry. Yesterday you had your life threaten by three of them, yet you didn't feel the need to kill them."

"I guess that's true,” Harry said.

"No guessing to it Harry. When you are dealing with your life, there can't be any guesswork or you won't last long. You knew Harry. You didn't guess, you just knew that you could deal with them without killing them. This is the way we work Harry. All of us. The Unspeakables are wizards that have gone way beyond the normal studies that are taught at Hogwarts. We learn many different types of magic Harry and we use different methods to deliver that magic."

"Different methods?" Harry asked.

"Yes Harry. I obviously can't tell you all of the details, but for instance, we use a lot of internal magic that most can't control without a wand."

"I didn't know that anyone could actually do that well. All the books that I have read say that people can move things, and apparate, but they really can't do much more than that," Hermione said.

"That's not true Ms. Granger. It takes a lot of practice and not everyone can do it of course, but there are all sorts of things that can be done without a wand."

Harry didn't say anything, but when he heard this, his mind was flooded with memories, thoughts, and instances of magic being performed without wands. He saw himself concentrating on the spell and triggering it with a snap of his finger, or a clap of his hand to release it. This had to be another one of these things that Godric had given him.

"You disagree Harry?" Rooney asked after seeing a strange look on Harry's face.

"No! no sir. I was just thinking about some of the times I have seen people perform spells without wands. I totally agree with you sir," he said.

"I am sure the two of you have done things, unpredicible things, but still instances of magic when you were angry or frightened. Everyone can do it to a point, but we teach them how to focus it. It can be very deadly when properly focused,” Rooney said.

"Harry blew up his Aunt Marge one time and he didn't use a wand,” Hermione said smiling.

"Very funny Hermione. It was a while back and she made me a bit angry and I just lost control,” Harry said to Mooney.

Mooney smiled at him, "Most wizards and witches have instances of this. The truth is that most Unspeakables and some Aurors don't use wands at all. We carry them, but that is for every day type spells. The things we use when we are working against dangerous wizards are very different. We have many methods of delivering spells quickly and quietly so that we aren't spotted."

"What types of things?" Hermione asked.

"I really can't go into that Hermione, but I can tell you that they are very efficient, just as efficient as wands, just a bit more...discreet."

Hurstmoved quietly into one of the classrooms that had windows facing the front of the castle. He took out a small marbled-sized sphere and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger and it began to glow and then shot a laser- like light down towards the front entrance to the castle.

Professor Dumbledore looked up towards the window and then put his arm up in the air. In a few seconds, Fawkes came out of nowhere and landed on his arm. He smiled at him and then said softly. "Tell them it is time to begin Fawkes."

Fawkes flew off of his arm towards the rear of the castle.