The Redemption of the Dark Lord

THE REDEMPTION OF THE DARK LORD

CHAPTER ONE

Three years after his graduation from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry Potter is now a rookie Auror. Voldemort has been missing this whole time (having mysteriously disappeared during the heat of his "final battle" with Harry), and everyone--including Dumbledore--says that he is now in Azkaban Prison, in the sinister clutches of the Dementors (who turned against Lord Voldemort).

However, the current state of Voldemort's independence mattered little to Harry and his SWAT team of Aurors. Their only task was to take back the Three Broomsticks pub, which had been seized by supporters of the absentee Dark Lord. All of the patrons had fled, and the formerly merry place where Harry and his friends had spent may a Hogsmeade Weekend now seemed unfamiliar. Here and there were scattered booths and tables; the remains of the bar were scattered about the general area of the floor. A thin mist hung in the air; green was its color and foul was its smell.

Harry led his team to the space behind the bar. This was, strategically, a good base-of-operations--it was cat-a-corner from the stairwell, up which the Insurgents were stationed. If there was a problem with one of the Sorties that he would send out, he could send a signal for backup.

But Harry did not know that his team was actually outnumbered by the Dark Wizards.

Suddenly, a force of twenty mages fell upon his small group of ten wizards. He could tell by the commotion above him that there were at least ten more Insurgents upstairs.

The blitzkrieg forced Harry's troop into a defensive position. Five of his fighters formed a defensive circle around the Herald, who was relaying the distress call to Captain Potter's rival on the Force and everywhere else: the unquestionably dark Captain Draco Malfoy.

Meanwhile, Harry took the remaining four fighters and himself to try and escape the pub. Once outside, Harry's plan was to break into one of the upstairs windows and cause some chaos among the ten or so troops stationed in that quadrant. If he timed it just right, Malfoy's troops would be storming into the building just as Harry and his troops were coming down the stairs.

When he and his troops had climbed up their grappling hooks and had entered the upstairs, Harry ordered them to put on their night-vision goggles and throw their smoke pellets into the next room, where the ten Insurgents were stationed. When this was done, Harry gave the order, "OPEN.... FIRE!" and his troops began to shoot stupefying spells against the unwitting, blind Dark Wizards.

Harry's timing had been correct, and Malfoy's troops busted into the inn just as Harry's came down the stairs. There was little the group of seven Insurgents could do against eighteen men (two of the Herald's guards had been killed during the struggle), and the day was soon won. Unfortunately, most of the credit went to Captain Malfoy, who actually did very little work and lost very few troops--none, in fact.

A host of Dementors came fifteen minutes later to collect the stupefied prisoners and escort them to Azkaban.