Fly Me Back

Harry Potter : Fly Me Back

Chapter Two : A Host of Not So Unexpected Visitors

While the wand in the hand of the Dudley That Wasn't Dudley reared back and prepared to carry out the whispered curse of painful terror on Vernon Dursley, the entire backyard of number four, Privet Drive, erupted into a jumble of chaos.

The owls were the first to react to the scene before them. Harry, it turned out, had guessed rightly that they were stationed there on orders to watch the Dursley household and act as a sort of alarm system should anything suspicious happen around or to the young wizard. The fastest of the owls had carefully slipped away when Mr Tibbles had first appeared in the area, followed by another group that took off as soon as the second Dudley, the real Dudley, tackled the unsuspecting Harry to the ground. Another group filled in the spaces left behind by those that had disappeared, apparently trying to hold the line. One final group of owls sprang into action as the impostor raised his wand hand. A clumsy but determined grey owl that Harry immediately recognized as Errol dove in just as the curse was released and took the brunt of it onto himself, falling like a dead weight to the ground in a mess of convulsing wings and feathers. The remainder of the group split into two flanks with one group swooping in a tornadic pattern around the fake Dudley to take pecks at his head and arms as they passed while the other swirled around in a similarly distracting pattern between the doppelganger and Harry.

Harry almost (almost) wished that he could make the owls stop, or at least slow down a bit, because all of the movement was making his stomach even more squiggly than it already was from Dudley's nausea-inducing sock to his head. Almost. The notion that he was right, that the owls were there for him, for his protection, gave him an ounce of hope where for a split second there hadn't been one. Someone -- Professor Dumbledore? Lupin? Moody? -- on his side had posted those owls there for a reason and what was going on in his backyard was probably just that reason. He hadn't been completely abandoned after all! Any minute now, there would be an entire force of wizards coming to his aide. There was no other reason why those owls would be there, right?

If nothing else, the distraction of owls had given Harry just enough time to take in and react to the scene going on above him. From what he could tell through his double vision, two of the real Dudley were standing completely petrified (without the help of a spell) to his right, in between Harry and the house. Now that his hand was free from having punched his cousin, Dudley protectively gripped his backside with one hand while the other, for whatever reason, clutched the back of his head. Harry's vision had cleared up enough so that he was seeing only one and a half of Uncle Vernon, who was still pointing furiously from where he was glued to the step down from the kitchen doorway into the yard, attempting to stammer out another shout of "P-p-p-ott-tt-tt-er!" The evil version of Dudley -- who Harry still wasn't all too sure who it was but was sure he was there -- was on his left, the farthest away from the house. Dismally, the only advantage that Harry could see was that if it became a race, he could definitely beat Dudley's body into the house. Still, he knew that wasn't much of an advantage to look to for help. With the owls out of commission, there didn't appear to be much help from anything at all.

Unfortunately, the time that Harry needed to get himself together was also enough time for his cousin's look-alike to pull himself together as well. He raised the wand in his hand and muttered some sort of incantation that Harry couldn't quite make out. Waves of bright blue light pushed out and away from him in a circle like shock waves from an epicenter, knocking each and every owl to the ground, either dead or unconscious. Even though those that had been keeping the guard line broke out to take over the attack, it was enough time for the impostor to aim his wand wickedly once again at Uncle Vernon.

This time, Harry was much more prepared for the impostor's attack. While the owls raced to get themselves between himself and Dudley's double, they were both protecting Harry and prohibiting him from getting a clean shot himself of the impostor. Harry and Dudley exchanged the quickest of glances in which they said the same thing -- they maybe couldn't get to each other, but they both had a clear view of Uncle Vernon on the back stair. Harry pushed himself up dizzily on his elbows, raised his own wand and pointed it in the direction of his uncle as the doppelganger did the same.

Vernon's eyes popped open in terror when he saw two wands pointing in his direction. His arms flew straight out in front of himself, his hands pointed palm up futilely to protect himself from whatever weirdo nonsense was about to strike him. His eyes floated between Harry and "Dudley", assessing what exactly he was seeing. Then, as if he had expected it all along, Vernon's face was overcome by the idea that he was finally going to die at his nephew's hand for everything he had ever said to the boy. His expression then bravely hardened as if to say, Well, boy, do whatever it is you do and end this.

Seeing that Vernon's attention was drawn to his nephew and not him, the impostor took the opportunity to strike again before the owls could completely organize themselves. With his wand pointed directly at Dursley's legs he seethed, "Crucio!"

At the same time, Harry corrected his aim at his uncle and started to shout a Shielding Charm at the man. "Prote -- "

Harry, however, in his need to watch his uncle and Impostor Dudley had forgotten to keep an eye on his real cousin. Dudley, so upset by the chaos around him, had been backing up to get away from his double. He was so busy, however, covering his own ass and head that he didn't pay any attention to what he was doing and backed right over Harry. With a yelp of fright, the oversized teenager toppled over his cousin's wand arm, sending what would have been a powerful Shielding Charm flying off into the side of the house instead of to his father. The sounds of both boys groaning in pain was completely overshadowed by the wails of agony as Vernon's legs and arms snapped in on him, wrenching him to the ground, the middle of his spine landing hard on the edge of the step down from the doorway.

As the boys tried to untangle themselves, Harry was able to get a glimpse of his uncle just as the Wizarding Dudley pointed his wand at Vernon and whirled it around like a conductor in front of an orchestra, sending his uncle's legs off into directions that weren't humanly possible. Harry cringed at the sound of his uncle's bones breaking as they jerked under the magical pressure. He tried to push his cousin off of him so that he could come to his uncle's aid, but there was just too much Dudley for him to get out from under the boy. The real Dudley, on the other hand, was all hands as he pushed down on Harry again to try and launch himself up from the pile. The more that Harry tried to get up, the harder he was shoved by his cousin. Dudley, when he finally did manage to get into a standing position only proceeded to entangle himself in Harry's legs, falling right back down again.

Still, it was enough for Harry. He sat up immediately and blasted the charm towards his uncle that he had heard Lupin use to help his friend Neville when he'd been under the Cruciatus Curse, this time hitting his uncle square in the chest. "Finite!" Vernon's legs fell limply to the ground as he let loose another scream in his raging pain. "Finite!" he shouted again, this time aiming his wand at his uncle's arms, which settled around his barrel of a chest in a hug. Harry could only hope that he had given the man relief enough as he scrambled to untangle himself from Dudley so that he could rise to again face the Dudley That Wasn't Dudley.

Rising shakily to his full height, Harry swept his unruly black hair out of his eyes as if it were part of a great battle strategy, like it was the final thing he needed to do before he squared off with whoever this wizard was who had stolen his cousin's face. He turned on the family's attacker, wand raised. He did his best to appear more than ready to duel, regardless of every instinct that told him to just get out of there as fast as possible. The impostor also turned to face his prey, a glint of maddened giddiness in his eyes.

"Potter . . . " The doppelganger smarmily bowed in invitation.

Harry was about to ask for at least the courtesy of the identity of his opponent when, from somewhere nearby inside the house, he heard his aunt shriek so ferociously that he barely recognized the sound as something she was even capable of making. It sounded more like an anguished cry that he had only ever heard from Hagrid, it was so terrible. Then, underneath her scream he heard the rumblings of an explosion that soon drowned out her voice and every other sound around him. His heart sank even lower as he realized what exactly the sound meant.

They, whoever they were, were coming for him from all sides -- and he was still alone.

"MUM!" Dudley shouted and took off running for the house before Harry could do anything about it. The larger, completely frazzled boy tried to get passed his father, but ended up tripping over the man as he ran. Vernon, too tired to actually speak, reached for Dudley's sleeve and silently begged his boy to help him into the house, but Dudley continued on running and screaming for destinations unknown, leaving Vernon to watch in horror as Harry was left to face the other Dudley on his own.

Of course, it really wasn't Dudley. And although his cousin wasn't exactly known for his sense of fair play, if the impostor really was a Death Eater as Harry suspected, he was certain that he couldn't count on one of Voldemort's most trusted followers to observe even the most remedial dueling customs. True to form, in just the smallest of seconds that it took the boy to look in the direction of his aunt's screech and back, the impostor brandished his wand and let loose a throaty, "Elektrifikus!"

Harry was hurtled a good thirty feet back before he fell to the ground once more, unable to move as his limbs sizzled with a strange blue lightning that he had never seen before. When his head was once more throttled into the hard ground, blobs of different colored light swam around in his field of vision, keeping him from being able to see where his attacker had gone. Then, out of seemingly nowhere, the evil version of his cousin towered over him, circling the wand around over Harry's heart with a delighted little grin. As the Dudley That Wasn't Dudley spoke, his voice began to change, gurgling and croaking as it became a touch more feminine, but threatening all the same.

"Does this feel at all familiar, Potter? Who are you going to get killed this time, hmmm? That's what you do, isn't it? You killed off your schoolmate -- what was his name? Doesn't matter, does it really? But then to go around getting your entire family knocked off . . . First your parents, then your godfather, and now your aunt and uncle and cousin." Dudley That Wasn't Dudley clicked his tongue against his teeth a few times and shook his head with a wicked pleasure. He leaned in close so that he could breathe into Harry's ear as he asked, "Well, you just get people killed wherever you go, don't you, Potter?"

The young wizard's heart seemed to stop in his chest, it hurt so much. He'd dreaded this, more than just about anything else. It was perfectly natural that when he came up against one of Voldemort's Death Eaters that they would use that, wasn't it? He'd had had plenty of time over the holiday to imagine this very moment, the moment when one of them would try to use what had happened to Sirius against him. He had tried so desperately to steel himself against it, but there it was. He had been ready and still it turned his stomach to ice. Maybe it was just because he'd thought it himself. He was a hazard to everyone he cared about, wasn't he? He'd felt it, sure. Since the very moment that he had watched Sirius . . . No! He couldn't think about that just yet. No matter how hard his attacker tried to distract him and weaken him, Harry couldn't let it get to him. If he was going to get out of the backyard alive, he had to forget. He had to.

Dudley That Wasn't Dudley stood up straight again, looking quite disappointed at the lack of a response. He shrugged and pointed his wand down at Harry. Another shot of blue lightning struck the helpless boy as his not-cousin commanded, "Stay down."

The other Dudley taunted him again with the wand through the transformation as the body began to slim into something much more effeminate. The hair began to change, as well as the eyes, hands, and face. He still couldn't be too sure who he was looking at, but he guessed he was a she, and whoever she was, she inspired the most hateful feeling he had ever had in his life with the words, "It's too bad my darling cousin isn't here to help you out this time, huh? Oops, guess not."

At that moment, Harry knew that voice beyond any other. In his rage, he held a low, furious growl between his teeth as he rose with sheer will to charge the woman who was a third of the way through her transformation to return to her true form. His arms still rattled with the electricity flowing through them and he couldn't quite see straight from the knocks he'd taken to the head and glasses, but all he needed was to hear her cackle to know just exactly where she was.

The heavily lidded eyes of Bellatrix Lestrange batted wide in amused shock as Harry rose through her spell, flashes of blue lightning glowing in his face, arms, and hands. She side stepped him a bit, narrowing her eyes at him. "Angry, Potter? Did I touch a nerve?"

"Bindum!" Harry shouted, his wand pointed in the direction of her voice. Thick ropes shot out from the end of his wand and wrapped themselves securely around the boy-legs of the half transformed Bellatrix/Dudley. She fell to the ground with an "oof!" and a laugh. Harry stood over her, shaking more from pure anger and hatred than from the effects of her spell. "Don't you ever speak of him again."

Harry took off running across the yard to get to his uncle, scaring some of the owls that had started to come around again. To them he ordered, "Don't let her up!" As he got closer to the house, he heard Aunt Petunia scream again, although she actually managed to get a few words out this time. "Get out of my house," he heard her yell. "VERNON!"

"You don't really think these can hold me, do you, Potter?"

Not forever

, Harry thought. They just have to last until help gets here. He didn't bother to actually respond to her as he got closer to his uncle. He had much more important things to do, like figure out where in the world they were going to go. Obviously someone was inside the house with his aunt, so they couldn't go that way. They couldn't exactly leave Petunia and Dudley there alone either. Even if he was going to get them out of there, where would they go that they couldn't be found anyway? Then again, how he was even going to be able to move his uncle at all and still keep his aunt and cousin together was going to be difficult enough. If only he could remember that stretcher conjuring spell he'd seen Professor Lupin use once . . .

"You're a fool, Potter," Lestrange teased, breaking into Harry's thoughts. She made as big a show as possible of loosening the bonds around her ankles, her eyes burning a hole into the back of Harry's head as he ran for his uncle's side. "Your parents were fools, too. They were far too soft, just like you. You didn't have the stomach to kill me two months ago and you obviously don't have the guts to do it now or you would have done it already."

"Things change," Harry snarled, his teeth still clenched tightly to hold in the scream he wanted so desperately to let go. He dropped down next to his uncle. Gripping his wand tightly in his hand, he put his fist and his other hand on Vernon's shoulders, squeezed, and tried to pull his uncle in through the doorway so that the man could at least be a little sheltered from what Harry knew was about to happen. Vernon's scream of agony told him immediately that that method was not going to be working at all. He looked back over into the eyes of their attacker, who was lying there waiting patiently for him to give her that exact look of helplessness.

"Do they now," she laughed. "You think you can take me on now that my precious cousin isn't here to fight your battles for you?"

As hard as he tried to fight it, Harry flinched at the mention of Sirius. Angry with himself for showing any sign that he was disturbed by her mocking, he yelled, "I told you not to mention him. You have no right to speak of him!"

The movement wasn't lost on Bellatrix, either. Her smirk spread the entire width of her face as she taunted him. "Aww, that's right -- he isn't here to fight your battle for you because you got him killed, didn't you?"

"SHUT UP!"

"For example," she continued, looking directly over at him from the ground, writhing around like a snake. "Darling Cousin Sirius would have known better than to ever turn his back on anyone who hasn't completely transfigured from one body to another after the Polyjuice Potion wears off."

As she said it, Harry's face drained of all remaining color with the realization that she was right. The ropes were not tightening around her smaller limbs as they transformed from the meaty Dudley's to her bony, Azkaban-worn appendages. He watched in horror as the process finished and the ropes dropped easily around her. His eyes followed her as she rose, every inch of her the murdering witch he saw in his dreams every single night.

"The hour's up," she cackled.

She strode towards boy and uncle, her wand hurtling recovered owls out of her way as they came at her once more.

"How do you work this thing?" Vernon asked, panicked. He reached for his nephew's hand, the one that Harry used to wield his wand, and clutched it as tightly as possible with both hands, pulling it across his chest for protection. There was no doubt that he now had a much different understanding of what his nephew was. And if the boy could keep him from feeling that pain again, well . . . He could even come home for the Christmas holidays this year if he would just stop her. Vernon started waving the hand around and begged, "Do something, boy!"

The problem with that request, however, was that he had just handed himself and his nephew to the witch that was advancing on them. His plump fingers were biting so hard into Harry's hand that they had cut off all the circulation to his hand. When Bellatrix hollered, "Accio!", three sweaty hands weren't enough to hold onto anything, and Harry's wand soared away in front of them to be caught by the witch.

"Do you know the Avada Kedavra, Potter?" She came to a stop about ten feet from them then paced back and forth in front of the step like a lion in the circus, waiting for the ringmaster to come at him with that stupid, useless chair. She walked with such a confidence that Harry was almost inclined to agree with her that she had the upper hand. "Your parents certainly did. Would you like to see it? It really is magnificent to see in person." She directed his own wand at his head, right between his eyes, making him flinch. "Here, let me show you."

Bravely, Harry said, "Maybe some other night."

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "But tonight is such a good night to die, Potter." In a flash Harry saw his wand tip ignite with green energy and move slightly down. "Avada Ked -- "

From somewhere near the side of the house a voice shouted, "Stupe -- "

" -- avra!"

" -- fy!"

Bellatrix went flying to the side as a powerful jet of red struck her with the Stunning Charm. At the same time, however, the deadly green energy of the Unforgivable Curse escaped Harry's wand and collided violently with Vernon Dursley's heaving chest.

Those two words were it, the only warning that Harry had that his entire world was about to change all over again. He'd seen it before. It wasn't like he hadn't seen it, but he had never been quite so close to it. When the impostor Professor Moody had told his class about the Unforgivable Curses during Defense Against the Dark Arts fourth year, he had just done it on a spider. Granted, the spider didn't deserve that death either, but still, it had only been a spider. When it had happened to Cedric, his scar had been hurting so terribly that he couldn't see a thing, it was so blinding. This time, though, Harry was there, front and center, and he could witness the entire thing.

He never liked his Muggle relatives and they despised him. There was no secret about that. Harry would never actually wish them dead, though, and certainly not like this. He watched that bright green flash as it hurtled towards them surrounded in that awful roar of sound and knew that there was absolutely nothing he could do. The impostor Moody had told them that there was no way to block or counter the Killing Curse. It didn't matter that Harry didn't have his wand. There was absolutely nothing he could do.

Then, just like that, it was over. Uncle Vernon wasn't struggling in his grasp any more. He wasn't panting in his pained panic. His limbs weren't still twitching from the power of the Cruciatus Curse as they should have been. Harry remembered. His arms and legs had twitched and ached for hours after he had been under it. Uncle Vernon's should be doing something. He should at the very least be yelling at Harry to do something or insulting him or telling them all to be quiet so that the neighbors wouldn't hear what was going on. But no matter how much Harry willed the man to move, Vernon Dursley wasn't doing anything at all.

Harry circled his arms around his uncle even tighter, not really sure what it was that he was shielding the man from, but knowing somehow that he had to do it. He knew that he couldn't let this be the end of it all. If he let go and Vernon was still staring ahead at nothing as he was at the moment, that would mean that the man was really gone. He couldn't really call his relatives' house 'home' and it wasn't a place that he was going to cherish out of all of his memories in the years to come, but it was, for ten years, all he had ever known. If he let go now, it was all gone.

While Harry clung tighter to his dead uncle, Bill Weasley reached down and picked up Harry's wand where it had fallen to the ground from Bellatrix's grasp. Without taking his eyes off the semi-conscious witch slumped against the fence, Bill called out to his little brother's best friend, the boy who, like everyone else in the family, he had come to regard as another brother. "Harry . . . "

The boy couldn't answer, though. He was still sitting there, his uncle in his arms, unable to move or think to answer. He was sitting there, trapped under the weight of his uncle and he just didn't know what to do.

The eldest of the Weasley brothers side stepped to Harry, holding his own wand in his left hand and holding the younger wizard's out to him with his right. "Come on, Harry, you have to take it and run. Go inside the house. Help is inside."

"Help?" Harry couldn't believe it. He had been waiting all day for this, for any of them to show up to help him out because of his uncle's rampage. He had been waiting the entire time that he'd been wandering about in the yard. He had waited while he was lying there on the ground with her poised to kill him. And now, just like he'd wanted, they were here, but his uncle was dead. Where had they been? Where in Merlin's beard had they been?

"Get on. My dad's waiting for you, Harry, and Lupin, too."

"They are?"

"Yeah." The look on Bill's face brought Harry back a little more to his senses and what was going on around him. He really did need to get out of the backyard. He could barely even see straight, and not just because his glasses were once again broken. He was in no condition to be battling that witch (or any other) again at the moment. And as much as Harry could see that Bill wanted to be able to sit there with him and just let him adjust to what had just happened, they were in the middle of a situation and he couldn't wait for Harry to be okay. Something told him that Bill would be more than happy to be there later if he could, though. The friends exchanged one last look before Harry reached out tentatively and took his wand back into his hand. He regarded it strangely, knowing full well that it was his wand, the same wand that had spared him in so many battles in his life already, but that it was also the same wand that had just struck his uncle down. He looked back up at Bill, who nodded his understanding. "I know . . . It's going to be okay, Harry, but right now you have to go. I can't help you and watch her at the same time."

Harry turned his gaze onto the witch that was still half slumped up against the fencing of the backyard. If he wasn't completely there before, he was back now as the anger began to boil inside him all over again. "She killed Sirius."

Bill's eyes blazed furiously in his agreement. "I know."

"And she just killed my uncle."

"I promise you that none of us are going to let her get away with it, but right now you need to help all of us out and get inside."

"Or he can just stay out here with us," Bellatrix growled as she pulled herself up using the wooden panel of the fence behind her. Once standing she pointed her wand at Bill threateningly with one hand and touched the other to the back of her head. "That hurt."

"GOOD!" roared Harry, getting up but still holding on to Vernon's shoulders to try and drag the man into the house with him.

"Go on, Harry, get out of here," Bill ordered smoothly, almost like he was just giving the younger wizard permission to go to the movies. The eldest of the Weasley brothers marched into the middle of the backyard without taking his eyes off the now fully recovered Bellatrix Lestrange, meeting her in the same spot where Harry had thought he was having an actual conversation with the actual Dudley. She turned to meet him with her face completely aglow with a laugh. She took one look at his long red hair and acknowledged him with an evilly syrupy "Weasley," to which he heatedly responded, "Bitch." She raised an eyebrow at him, which he returned by raising his wand even with her heart. The two of them moved around in a circle, eyeing one another in greedy anticipation of which of them would be the first to strike.

Harry stood there, frozen in his anger, his eyes almost as dead as his uncle's, which now stared unseeing up at the empty sky. He understood that Bill had told him to go, and that he really should, but he couldn't take his eyes off his best friend's brother. Bill was going to face her, Bellatrix Lestrange, the reason that he was essentially orphaned a second time two months ago and a third time two minutes ago. She was the reason that Sirius was gone. She was the reason that Harry was still trying to pull on the dead weight of his uncle's body, unwilling to leave him to her to do with whatever she pleased. He may never have loved or even liked his uncle, but no one deserved to be burned down the way he had been over the likes of her. Now Bill was about to duel her . . . and Harry just didn't know if he could deal with whatever happened next.

Nervously he watched Bill's free hand as his fingers curled in and out alternately, flexing like the gunfighters always did in the movies right before the big noon showdown in the dusty streets. Time slowed down so much that it seemed almost as if neither one of the duelers was going to do anything at all except look at each other and laugh. Then they both stopped and each of them took half a step back, their bodies turned to the side, civilly brandishing their wands as if they were fencing foils. They were finally ready.

"GO, Harry!"

Without thinking, Harry unceremoniously let his uncle's shoulders fall to the ground again as he scrambled to get out from under the man's weight and follow Bill's order. His throat tightened as he turned to leave, not knowing what he was leaving Bill to.

"Get down, Harry!"

Harry wasn't quite sure who yelled at him from somewhere behind him, but as the voice hollered, another explosion rocked from inside the house, this time from near what he guessed was the fireplace. He heard something slamming into the walls where his cupboard was, knocking into the metal grate in the door. Instinctively Harry rolled over his uncle, covering the dead man's head from possible danger with his body while covering his own head with his hands like the voice told him to. He was about to get back up and check out the source of the voice when it was right beside him, pushing his head back down and covering it with thin but muscular hands.

"Stay down," the voice told him hoarsely.

A series of different colored flashes zoomed overhead where Harry's head would have been had he managed to get to his full height. A few chips of wood dusted his hair as one of the spells propelled itself into the door frame. Again he tried to raise his head when the hand pushed it right back down again. Without any warning, the door above them was blown off its hinges, splintering into thousands of pieces as it flew into the yard at the duelers.

"Okay, let's go," the voice commanded. The hands pulled him up from under his arms and dragged him through the kitchen, forcing him to bend over while the hands covered his head while they ran. "Keep your head down!"

Another explosion rocked the kitchen, forcing the two of them down underneath the kitchen table. The sound was still ringing in Harry's ears as one of the hands started feeling around his head, reminding him of the forgotten pain of all of the hits he had taken to the head in the last few minutes. As soon as the fingers found the goose egg and matching cut on the back of his head from crashing to the ground, he winced. The hand kept going, though, until it found the spot that was sure to leave a nice shiner on his cheek from where Dudley had throttled him. Harry finally jerked his head away from whoever was (he guessed) checking him for injuries, which only made his head hurt even worse. He sucked air in through his teeth and grumbled, "Can you please not do that?"

Through the ringing in his ears, Harry finally recognized the hoarse voice as it forced a laugh at him. "Just be thankful I'm not Moody. He'd be checking out a lot more than just your bleeding head."

"I'm bleeding?"

Remus Lupin help up two fingers for Harry to see, the tips of which were smeared with blood that he could only guess was his. The man, who had been one of the Potters' two best friends, smiled at the boy at his side before letting it slip from his face just a bit to become a touch more concerned. "Are you all right, Harry?"

Harry wasn't quite sure if there was an answer to that question at the moment, so instead he asked one of his own. "What's going on?"

"I wish I knew," said Lupin. "All we know is that Fred and George Weasley had stopped by to check on you when they saw someone in a Death Eater mask following your cousin, sent for us, and we came right away. We had no idea we were walking into this."

With that, Lupin stuck his head around the corner of the counter to check to see if there was anyone near them. He was greeted with a bright blue jet of energy that barely missed the tip of his nose. While he returned the jinx with one of his own, Harry wracked his brain to process what exactly was going on around them. Then, all of a sudden, he burst out of nowhere, grabbing his former teacher's sleeve.

"The Polyjuice Potion!"

"What?"

"That must be how she got the ingredients for the Polyjuice Potion," said Harry. "Bellatrix Lestrange, she was disguised as . . . she had transfigured into Dudley. We were in the backyard talking. She was asking all kinds of questions -- "

"What sort of questions," Lupin asked urgently.

"All kinds of things. He was -- she was trying to get me to talk about the dementors that attacked us last summer. She wanted to know what I was seeing and hearing when I've seen them . . . and the owls. She wanted to know about the owls. I think -- I think she would have asked a lot more about things if Dudley hadn't come out and clocked me."

"What did you tell her?"

"Nothing, not really."

"Good," said Lupin. A slight grin crossed his young but careworn face. He nodded in the direction of the dining room, where Harry could hear his aunt and cousin screaming at the tops of their lungs amidst shattering glass that he could only guess was the remainder of the family china. "Arthur's waiting for us. Ready to make the break for it?"

"But we left Bill back there alone." He looked hard at Lupin. "Alone with her."

Remus flinched a bit every time at the slightest mention of Bellatrix Lestrange and the mere suggestion of Sirius, just as Harry had done. The man's eyes darkened with a hatred that Harry thought was reserved only for Peter Pettigrew, the traitor responsible for the deaths of Harry's parents, James and Lily Potter. Harry was suddenly struck with the realization that he had never really considered just how losing Sirius had affected anyone else who knew him. Lupin had lost all of his childhood friends, the only people he had ever really cared for because of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Thanks to the Lestrange woman, he'd lost his best friend for a second time. There was an absolutely murderous look to him that told Harry that he'd love to have that woman locked up in the Shrieking Shack alone with him on the night of the full moon.

The two of them studied each other for a moment, realizing the mutual hatred they had for the woman. Then Lupin seemed to remember that he was looking at Harry, that he was there to help Harry, and that they were wasting time. He shook his head, sadly, and put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"I promise you, Harry, we will get our chance with her, but right now we need to join Arthur. Bill stayed back there to give you a chance and we need to take it." He raised his wand and waited for Harry to raise his. "Stay close and keep your head down. On three . . . "

Together they made a dash for it, weaving around the kitchen table and overturned chairs, ultimately diving in behind the dining room table and chairs next to Mr Weasley. When they both reached their knees, Ron's father put an arm around Harry's shoulders briefly in greeting before rising again to aim a curse in the direction of the blonde-headed woman across the way. When he came back down, he smiled heartily in his relief at seeing Harry in one piece. "Hello, Harry."

Before the boy could respond, there was a loud thud from above, followed by an ear piercing screech. Dudley, who Harry had seen dodging an entire battery of flying china, tangled his feet up and tripped on the table cloth, landing squarely in the pudding that he had grabbed and splattered all over the floor. Dudley, who they could now be certain was the real Dudley, tried to push himself up, but the pudding was struck from nearby with a Sticking Charm and pulled his face right back down again like it was a piece of bubble gum on the bottom of his shoe.

"StopItStopItSTOPItSTOPIT! I SAIDSTOP!" Petunia screamed over and over again, paralyzed in the middle of the dinner plate air field. Pausing only to duck an incoming gravy boat, she pulled out one of the high backed dining room chairs and stepped precariously on it so that she could stand on the dining room table. She screamed even more, as if her being in the line of fire would actually be enough for the chaos to stop around her. She stomped her foot down hard, scratching the table, which made her scream even louder. "ARGH! I demand you stop this AT ONCE!"

"For Pete's sake, get DOWN!"

Following closely on the tail of Mad-Eye Moody, a black-haired witch that Harry didn't recognize came charging in, wand ablaze, through the demolished front door and front sitting room into the dining area, grabbing his hysterical aunt about the waist and tackling her down to the ground behind the table. The witch landed next to her, forcing Petunia's head down as a flash of green jetted between the two women's heads. Harry heard his aunt hoot, "Unhand me, you-you-you crazy freak -- YOU!"

The witch smiled sarcastically at his aunt's seeming recognition. "Lovely to see you, too, Petunia. Now hush up and keep out of the way!" Harry couldn't help but notice that the witch seemed to take great pleasure in pushing his aunt's head flat to the carpet before she crawled over to join them, sending a few spells over the dining room table as she went. When she arrived, she laughed breathily. "Sorry I'm late, Remus, Arthur . . . Harry . . . " Her breath seemed to catch when she turned her head to greet Harry. He guessed she was probably thinking about how much he looked like his father. Everyone else did when they first saw him. She seemed to look right through him for an instant then corrected herself, her face alight again with an half-cocked smile. "So, what'd I miss?"

Harry was surprised to see Lupin react with just as amused a smile considering that the entire house was exploding around them. "Nice entrance," he told her before he popped his head and wand up long enough to try and stun the dark-headed witch by the fireplace. "Stupefy!" When his head came back down, he smiled again. "You had an uneventful trip, I assume?"

"He was just as delightful and gentlemanly as I remembered," she groaned in a way that Harry thought actually sounded happy. There was a certain smirk on her face as she rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "You'd think the man could have developed a sense of humor in fifteen years."

Lupin sniggered at her while Mr Weasley fired another curse in the direction of the witch that was standing on the window seat. Over the man's yell, Lupin warned her, "You know he probably saw that, right?"

"Probably," she admitted with a shrug. "Okay, you've got that awful Lestrange woman in the back with one of Arthur's boys," she said, indicating her hair to show how she had figured out who Bill belonged to. "I counted four here inside the house: one by the fireplace, one on the window seat, and two that are using the sofa for cover. There was one on the stairs just inside the door when I was coming in, but Moody said he'd have her taken care of before you got there. I didn't see anyone else." She paused quickly to look around. "They certainly are doing an awful lot of damage for such a small group."

"They're trying to keep us distracted," mused Remus questioningly.

The witch nodded. "Moody seems to think so."

When Mr Weasley ducked back down, Harry thought he appeared sort of nervous as he turned to Lupin and the woman. To them he breathed, "We need to get Harry out of here."

The black-haired witch held up a finger to indicate that they should wait for just one second. Her head popped up over the table, wand directed at a set of identical twin witches that were trying to advance from the sofa on Aunt Petunia's position in the corner. She shouted some curse -- Duellumos!? -- that Harry had never heard of before, but it apparently did its job because suddenly the two witches were facing each other and hexing one another instead of anyone else. When she came back down, she looked between Mr Weasley and Lupin. "Remus, if you can get him to the hallway, Moody's waiting to get him upstairs."

Mr Weasley nodded and looked at the witch. "You're all right alone for a while?"

She winked at him eagerly. "Two down, two to go."

"Don't go trying to impress anyone," Remus warned her, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking of doing. "Dumbledore already gave you the job. The idea here is to get all of us out of this safely, not to be the most creative."

"My brother would be so disappointed to hear you say that, Moony."

"Just be careful," Mr Weasley told her then patted Harry on the knee. "All right then, Harry. Stay close to him." To Lupin he said, "I'm going to help Bill."

Suddenly Harry remembered that he had left his uncle lying on the step into the backyard when Bill had told him to run and Lupin had dragged him away. "My uncle -- "

Mr Weasley looked at the witch and Lupin, who shook his head. Mr Weasley put a hand on Harry's shoulder sadly. "There isn't anything we can do for him right now, Harry. I promise you we'll take care of him when this is over. Now go with Remus. You need to make it up to your bedroom for us."

"But I'm okay," Harry protested. "Let me help. I can help."

"Not this time, Harry," said Lupin. He gave the young wizard an encouraging smile, like he could just imagine the outburst that was brewing inside the boy's head at the moment. "We know you can do this, but Dumbledore said we were to keep you out of this at all costs."

"But -- "

Lupin wrapped one of his hands around Harry's upper arm and tugged lightly but firmly. "Not tonight, Harry. You're already injured as it is."

"It's not that bad."

"All the same, let's go." To the witch he added again, "Play safe until I get back." To Mr Weasley he said, that murderously dark look returning to his features for the briefest of moments, "Alive, Arthur. I want her alive."

Lupin pulled Harry's arm as they crept along the edge of the table. Once the red flare flew over their heads and shattered one of the picture frames mounted on the wall, they made the break to get back into the kitchen. They inched their way along the walls until they rounded the corner and opened what remained of the hallway door. They had to dodge a few errant and reflected spells as they made their way down the hall where a rather annoyed looking Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody was waiting impatiently for them.

Moody greeted them in his usual gruff, entirely suspicious manner, the lines around his eyes becoming much more pronounced as he peered into the darkness of the hallway at Harry. "All right, there, Potter?"

Harry thought he was, at least he did until he got a look at the man's face from under his hat. Harry's stomach had immediately turned squirmy again when the Auror looked at him. While the one eye, the dark one, looked at him in the same way that everyone else's had, with concern and (moderate) affection, Moody's electric blue magical eye was rolling around non-stop. It was watching everything that was going on in the living room/dining area, the backyard, the front yard, and the upstairs pretty much all at once. Like with the owls, the frenzy of movement was making him dizzy and he just wished it would stop and let him catch his breath.

When Harry didn't answer, Lupin nudged him in the shoulder and told Moody, "He's fine, Mad-Eye. He just took a few knocks to the head. We really should get -- "

"Boy, how many times must I tell you to keep that wand of yours always at the ready?" Moody suddenly interrupted, reaching down to pull Harry's wand so that it was up at shoulder level. Harry blinked at him a few times, not really sure why he was being scolded. When Moody saw the reaction, he rolled his normal eye in exasperation. "What good is it going to do you if you're sending your spells into the ground? It takes valuable seconds to raise that wand that could mean the difference between defending yourself and the unthinkable. You must always be ready for anything, Potter. Always ready!"

Lupin looked slightly irritated with Moody's timing for the wand safety lesson. "Not now, Mad-Eye. Let's just worry about getting him upstairs, shall we?"

As the group dodged a few spells that reflected off the walls into the hallway, they carefully made their way along the wall to the first step on the stair well. Moody, on point, was just about to usher Remus and Harry through when a blue belt of light hit the banister and blew it to bits. He pulled his hand back protectively to his chest, swearing rather colorfully. Lupin made to check it out but Moody pulled away, still cursing.

"I'm right behind you. Get going!"

Lupin nodded and pushed Harry flat against the back wall of the stair case. Keeping himself between any incoming spells and Harry, Lupin guided them up the stair, all the while telling Moody every time they needed to take a step up since the man was clunking up backwards. It was slow going, especially with spells flying every which way, but they were finally able to reach the top of the stairs without injury. Lupin pulled Harry forward while Moody brought up the rear, still walking backwards so that one of them was on either side of the boy. When they reached his door, they continued to flank him while Moody's magical eye scanned the doorway and the room behind it. It wasn't until Moody nodded at Remus that any of them said anything.

"Boys, open up," called Lupin through Harry's door.

Immediately Harry felt the smallest of relieved smiles twitch across his mouth when he recognized the sarcastically skeptical voice of George Weasley. "How do we know it's you?"

Moody growled, "Don't make me blast this door open, Mr Weasley." One of the twins must have made an interesting gesture in response because Moody added unhappily, "I saw that!"

The door opened slowly while Fred peeked his head around wand first to make sure that he was actually talking to the wizards he was expecting. When he saw Harry standing there he pulled the door open wide, grinning like a fool. "Well, get in!"

Harry's arm was nearly pulled out of its socket as Fred grabbed his wrist and pulled his friend into the bedroom. He stumbled over his own feet at the sudden movement and almost ended up putting the end of his wand into George's right eye. When he'd finally righted himself, his arms were being roughly but happily pumped by the twins in their relief to see him still in one piece.

"Hiya, Harry!'

"Good to see you, mate!"

Before Harry got a chance to respond, Lupin was clapping him on the shoulder to grab his attention. The three teenagers turned their attention on their friend and former teacher. The twins immediately wiped the smiles from their faces when they saw the looks on the faces of both of the men in front of them.

"You need to get everything packed up, Harry," Lupin told him pointedly. "I don't know how long we're going to have to get you out of here and we need you to prepare for the worst that you may have to make the trip alone." To the Weasleys he added, "It's no longer safe here for him. Everything goes. No one gets in this room unless you know for certain that it's one of us, understood?"

"Understood," the twins repeated.

"What about my unc- -- "

"We'll take care of him, Harry, as soon as we can," said Lupin. "And we'll do our best to keep your aunt and cousin safe." As another explosion rocked the floor beneath their feet, he urgently turned to Moody. "We better get down there. We left her alone with four of them."

Moody, ever the vigilant Auror, added ominously, "If anything happens, anything at all, that keeps us from getting back up here to you, the three of you are to go straight for headquarters. Do not stop for anything. Do not take any detours unless you suspect you are being followed. Do not, if at all possible, get separated."

Lupin smiled reassuringly at the boys and tugged on Moody's arm. "I think they know what to do, Mad-Eye. We need to get down there."

"We'll be back," said Moody, and with the swishing of their tattered cloaks the wizards disappeared from the doorway.

Harry stared through the door after them, even if he couldn't see them leave. He actually stood there for so long that the twins exchanged worried glances. They looked hard at each other, silently arguing with the slightest wiggles of noses and raising of eyebrows until finally George shrugged. Fred turned back to the bed and began throwing more of Harry's things into his trunk while George came up next to his friend.

"All right there, Harry?"

"I really wish everyone would stop asking me that." Harry still couldn't take his eyes off the empty space where Lupin and Moody had been standing, afraid to look his friends in their eyes and have them know that he was far from all right. Instead he moved for a quick change of subject. "So who are they? I know they're Death Eaters, but who are they?"

George turned back towards his twin, who shrugged, neither one of them really sure what to say. They sort of knew the answer, but not really. Again they started twitching and mentally drawing straws until George said, "Let's get your stuff packed up. Moody'll kill us if he gets up here and we don't have you ready to fly outta here."

Fred immediately jumped on his brother's thought train. He raised his wand and called the top drawer of Harry's dresser to him, which proceeded to float over to the bed and land softly next to the trunk. Greedily the trunk started to gobble up anything that the twins were putting into it, making more room for whatever else they were packing for him. Too quickly however, the last pair of socks settled nicely into the trunk and the lid slammed shut and locked itself, knowing full well that everything Harry owned had been secured.

Harry, however, wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop that easily. His voice had a hollow quality as he spoke, still staring after the long gone Moody and Lupin. "She killed my uncle. I want to know why they -- "

George's jaw dropped in shock. He put a hand on his friend's shoulder to try to turn him around and get Harry to look him in the eye, but his hand was shrugged away. "Are you serious, Harry? Is he really -- "

"Hey, George, Harry, get a look at this!" Fred, looking for any sort of distraction for the moment from what was going to be a difficult conversation, motioned his brother and friend over to the bedroom window with absolute fascination. They looked down onto the lawn where, in the middle of a shower of red and green sparks, Bill was still battling with Bellatrix Lestrange.

"I guess that Head Boy thing wasn't just a fluke, huh?" George looked moderately surprised, as did his twin. "Look at him!"

Harry watched as the brothers looked on in utter amazement. He couldn't help but think it strange that they were so surprised to see their brother doing battle with a witch. After all, wasn't that what they had all been going to school for? Seven years at Hogwarts was supposed to be about learning magic and being able to use it. What did they think Bill had done his seven years there? Then again, he didn't have any brothers, so he couldn't exactly know what they were thinking. Maybe it just wasn't something that they could have appreciated until they saw him in action. Whatever the reason, though, they were in such awe watching Bill as he clashed with her that they were actually cheering him on through the nailed windows of Harry's room.

Without warning, another explosion rattled the room, this time shattering the glass in the window that they were watching from. The boys all ducked as glass flew at them, showering their heads and shoulders with shards. When they looked back out the window, Mr Weasley was emerging from underneath them, stumbling backwards into the backyard, wand aloft and firing a bright blue jet of light back in towards the house. He stepped back a few more feet, met evenly by the blonde-headed witch that Harry recognized from the window seat of the living room downstairs.

The boys all watched, intrigued, as Bill and Mr Weasley continued to battle their respective witches. Even Harry was feeling a certain swell that things were going to turn out all right as he watched them. Then, without warning, the heads of all four participants simultaneously turned in the same direction and all dueling stopped.

"What is that," asked Fred, covering his ears.

Harry groaned in realization at the approaching whining noise. He hadn't even thought about what would happen if the neighbors had been concerned enough about the sounds coming from the house to call for help. "Police sirens," he told them. "The Muggle police are coming. They're probably still three or four minutes away, though."

Bellatrix and her masked counterpart were the first to recover their attention and took full advantage of it. Before the boys could should shout out a warning, the witches took their shots at the Weasley men. Bill and Arthur were each thrust backwards into the air to collide with one another, knocking each other unconscious. The boys watched in horror as the elder two Weasleys slid to the ground as a matched pair into an unmoving heap.

The blonde-haired witch removed her Death Eater mask, revealing a young, beautiful, yet incredibly angry face that the Weasleys immediately recognized as Bellatrix's sister, Narcissa Malfoy. Her eyes narrowed as she looked down, pulled back, and kicked the prone form of Mr Weasley hard in the side. Unable to actually form words, she simply spat on the man's son.

George had to clamp a hand over his brother's mouth to keep him from shouting out at the vile woman. Urgently he hissed into his brother's ear, "Don't! If they hear you, we'll never get out of here. We have to get to headquarters or we're all as good as dead."

Fred nodded angrily and pulled his face away from his brother's hand. He turned to Harry, his face flush with fury. "Where's your broom?" Harry nodded in the direction of the wardrobe and Fred continued. "Well, get it ready. We're probably going to have to make a break for it."

Harry moved to his wardrobe to get his beloved Firebolt broomstick and take what was probably going to be his final look ever at his bedroom. He didn't know why, but the realization that he was more than likely never going to see it again was actually a bit sad. It wasn't as if he were ever actually happy in the room, but it just seemed like an ending that he wasn't ready to have. Of course, it wasn't as if the group of Death Eaters attacking the Dursley household were leaving him with any other option, either . . .

An angry gasp broke into Harry's thoughts as Fred and George were ducking down below the window frame. George made a motion towards Harry, palm down, to signal to him to drop down out of sight as well.

Alarmed, Harry did as he was told. "What is it?"

Down in the yard, Narcissa Malfoy looked up from her moaning victim to her sister with a particularly bored look. "I think we've been here long enough," she said. "Let's get what we came for and get out of here."

Bellatrix nodded. Together the sisters raised their wands in the direction of Harry's bedroom window. In clear voices they hollered in unison, "ACCIO WAND!" followed closely by a Silencing Charm at the three boys in Harry's room. "SILENCIO!"

Before any of them could realize what was happening, Harry's wand flew from his hand into the air. He futilely opened his mouth to call it back to him but no sound came out. As the wand went dashing out the window, Fred and George crashed into one another as they reached for it and missed. The trio ran helplessly to the glassless window sill and watched as the wand was magically carried into the excitedly waiting hands of Bellatrix. From under her robes, her sister withdrew an ancient looking box the length of a wizarding wand. Greedily they placed his wand in the box and sealed it tightly.

Once the parcel was safely tucked back into Narcissa's robes, Bellatrix looked up into the window one last time. She twinkled her fingers at them in a little wave and cackled deliciously. "See you, Potter." She smiled and raised her voice. "Ladies, we're done!"

With the familiar CRACK sound, the two women Disapparated from the yard without a trace.

Harry's hands shook with rage as he looked at the two brothers. He found his voice again as he seethed, "We need to get down there to help your -- "

The twins were both shaking their heads when Fred interrupted his friend. "No. We were told we had to get you to headquarters."

Immediately, Harry raised his voice to protest. "I'm not some kid that needs babysitting, Fred, and I'm not leaving here until I know that -- "

"Yeah, you are, mate," George cut in. "We don't have a choice here. We have to get -- "

Before George could finish his protest or Harry could return with one of his own, there was another series of explosions from downstairs, accompanied by screams of pain and terrible fear. One final BANG sounded, which they could only guess was at least one of the witches Disapparating from the house. Harry made to run for the door, but was held back by both of his arms by his friends. He was about to turn on them, to ask them what they could possibly be thinking, when a sharp holler came from somewhere near the stairwell.

Without thinking, the twins pulled the unarmed Harry behind them. The twins exchanged identical looks, almost as if one were looking at a reflection of the other in a mirror. With a nod, they turned shoulder to shoulder, wands raised and pointed at the door as the knob slowly started to turn.

"Grab your broom and go. We'll be right behind you. Watch yourself, Harry," Fred whispered then winked at his brother. "One -- "

"Two -- " George continued.

"THREE!"

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If you've had half as much fun reading this as I have had writing it, well then I've had twice as much fun writing it as you've had reading it. Thanks!