Chapter 1

Harry sat in his seemingly regular compartment on the Hogwarts Express.

It was curious how people and events tend to repeat themselves with no good reason. Even while trying to change the course of the war— and the course of Wizarding Britain, by the way— he still found himself sitting in the same compartment, on the same red/blue train, with the same friends, going to the same god-forsaken house (no "home" – he must still call it "home" for few more weeks) and his same damned relatives. It was almost as if all human lives, his included, were controlled by a pre-determined ritual. His ritual peaked during the yearly confrontation with Voldemort (no – "Tom") during which one more of his friends would suffer or die in order to enable him to play the ritual one more year.

His friends – he was trying to keep his distance from them since the battle of Hogwarts, maybe even since the Ministry— but they came forward, clear as they could be, and said "no". The crazy fools insisted on keeping him company and risking their lives. First, it was Ron and Hermione who explained plainly to him that he couldn't bear the weight of the world alone and they would be there with him till the end – as usual, if he liked it or not. Then it was Ginny, who seemed to be reasonable for a short while, back at school, but then lost it again and insisted that the fact that he didn't want her to be his girlfriend didn't mean that she wouldn't help his every step until the end of the war, and for as long as he would need the help after that. Finally, there was Luna and Neville. From their point of view, since they didn't have any friends until Harry decided, for no good reason, to befriend them – he was now stuck with them and that's, as they say, that!

Crazy bunch…

This year's train ride was much more quiet than the usual. Starting just at the end of Dumbledore's funeral, there was no running in the passage ways, laughing, or loudly making summer plans with friends. Instead, there were sombre and quiet gathering of friends, sitting together and discussing the coming summer. The safety of their families, the chances that school would, or wouldn't open the next year, and the chances that a good friend would not return to school even if it did open.

Harry almost missed his yearly-scheduled childish confrontation with Draco and Co; they would have insulted Hermione and Ron, Harry and Neville would have held Ron back, Draco would have foretold Harry's soon to come death, Draco would have then been thrown out of the compartment, and they would have been ready to disembark from the train.

The whole "I'm your nemesis" mantra seemed almost laughable now. Harry truly had, and surely still had, bigger fish to fry. It was now clear that Draco tried to define his own importance by comparing himself to Harry. Harry could see now that in ignoring Draco a little longer in the first year he could have put Draco in his place and saved the whole school a lot of trouble in the following years. That was all water under the bridge now; then again, back in his first year, Harry truly thought that the mean and pretentious student was the biggest of his problems.

He wondered what Draco was doing now and whether he had changed his mind regarding his Dark Lord already. He knew that Death Eaters usually suffered many more 'Crucios' than their innocent victims, and that the Malfoy family was far from being Tom's favourite family, these days.

Meanwhile, aboard the Hogwarts Express, there were undercurrents which divided the students. One current carried students, mostly from the Slytherin house to the front compartments of the train. Another undercurrent carried most of the other middle and upper class students to Harry's compartment, some time during the ride.

"What do you think will happen?", "What are you going to do?" were popular questions.

"You can call me if you need, you know I will help," was a much less popular comment.

He had no answers to those questions and was actually asking the same questions quietly, over and over in his head.

"I am still planning," he said.

"I will call you when plans are in place."

After a while, he was finally left with his five close friends.

"So – what are we going to do?" asked Ron. Harry looked at him silently. "You know I'm not the one to do planning and thinking. This is Hermione's and your department."

"Harry," said Hermione softly, "If we wish to survive this war, it can't go on the way it is. You, Ron, I and everybody else will need to change and adapt. You will need to learn how to plan and not only rely on your feelings and instincts. I will have to learn not to rely on authority and to bend some rules. Ron will have to get his red-haired temper under control, and we all need to learn how to talk to each other, work together, and rely on each other. Can we do that?"

Everyone set there in silence.

Finally, it was Luna who spoke out. "You can't let it be a Gryffindor-against-Slytherin yard fight. We need the Wizarding public to understand that this is a war to save everything they hold dear, and we need people from all Hogwarts houses by our side."

"We are not all Gryffindors. We already have you," replied Ron.

"As you know well enough, Ronald, I'm not the one to represent the Ravenclaw house, and you need people from Hufflepuff and Slytherin, too."

"We don't need those Slytherin traitors," protested Ron.

"Ron, this is exactly what Hermione was talking about. Not all Gryffindors are heroes in shining armour, you know. Do you remember your ex-rat? And not all Slytherin are Death eaters, either. Do you think that Ms. Nymphadora Tonks is such a horrible person?"

Ron just stared at his sister in silence.

"Do you think that Susan will help us?" asked Neville, shyly. "She is highly regarded by the Hufflepuffs. She's a prefect and might be the Head Girl next year," he added. "Sorry, Hermione," he said after another thought.

"Oh hush," said Hermione. "I'll probably not even go back to school next year and there are much more important things than school prestige on our plate, now. Can you go and ask her here? Ask her to come alone."

"I'll go and look for Su Li," said Luna. "She's the nicest of the Ravenclaw sixth years, and carries a lot of public opinion in our house, now that Cho is gone. She's a capable witch and might be the next Head Girl, too."

"Oh, just sod-off!" exclaimed Hermione to the sound of everyone's laughter.

"You know," said Neville. "I think that this is the first time I have heard Luna telling a joke."

A few minutes later, Luna and Neville came back into the compartment with Susan Bones and Su Li at their heels.

'"We came as ordered," said Susan, smiling.

"Hi, have a seat."

"We are trying to think of an answer to the big question – 'what's next?'" said Hermione. "We certainly don't know the answer yet, but we are quite sure that fighting Death Eaters will be a part of the answer and that this can't be just a Gryffindor fight. So here you are – will you join us?"

"There is more to it than just that," continued Harry. "We are now at war, and war is not a clean tournament. This war is going to be dangerous to both us and the Death Eaters. Deadly dangerous…"

"And what kind of help do you need from us?" asked Su.

"We need people to put their best towards the war effort, and then be a representative figure in their Hogwarts house to aid our image and recruiting efforts," answered Harry.

"Well, I have no family left and a lot of reasons to hate the Death Eaters. I will do my best to fight them."

"Thank you Susan, it means a lot to us. But you should remember that this is not revenge. We are going to fight a war, not a collective personal vendetta. We need to be disciplined and organised in order to have a chance at this."

"Neville is right," agreed Harry, "most of us have a lot to seek revenge for, but Voldemort and his followers are too dangerous for us to oppose without a pre made plan and without us sticking to that to the best of our ability".

'We'll need to do something about that You-Know-Who nonsense' he thought, watching Susan and Su flinch in fright, hearing Tom's made-up name.

"What about you, Su?"

"Will you train us for this war, Harry? Will you help protect our families? Will you listen to our thoughts and ideas?"

"Yes, to the best of our ability, and yes," he answered. "None of us is ready to fight, right now. Last year we barely made it out with our lives against the Death Eaters and, sadly, I don't think we made any significant progress this year."

"So, how do we do this?" asked Su.

"Do you still have your DA coin, Susan?" asked Hermione.

Susan nodded and took the coin out. "I've carried it since that night, a few days ago. I can't stop thinking that if only I and few others had carried it and arrived to help in time, things could have turned out differently…" she trailed off.

Hermione just nodded. "Here is a coin for you too, Su." She gave Su Li a coin from her shoulder bag. "Keep it in your pocket," she said. "It will warm up when we need to contact you, and the writing around the coin will change to the message we need to pass to you."

"There's a place I need to be for a fortnight," said Harry, "so we'll probably be in touch with you after that, and hopefully, we'll have a start of a plan by then."

"Let's get ready," said Ginny. "The train is pulling into the station."

"What about the Slytherins?" asked Su.

"I still think we don't need any bloody Slytherins," mumbled Ron.

"I'll look into this in the next week," promised Hermione. "A Slytherin who will talk to me can't be that bad," she smiled.

"Friends," called Harry, "keep your wands at hand and your eyes open!"

"Yes, Yes," said Ron. "Constant Vigilance!" he added to the sound of everyone's laughter.

Just before Harry exited the train, he felt Hermione's hand on his arm. "This is the exact moment, you know."

"What moment?"

"The moment we all grew up."

He stood there for a moment, looking at his friends walking towards their families. "I think you're right," he agreed. "I just hope we are all ready for this."

She gave him a short hug, and climbed down from the train.

The London platform was more crowded than Harry had ever seen it before. It looked like every student had a full welcoming committee waiting for them.

"I told you not to come," Harry heard a seventh year girl from Ravenclaw tell her mother. "I was just going to Apparate straight home," she said.

"I wanted to see you off your last Hogwarts Express ride," replied the mother. "And I didn't want you to be alone," she added silently, looking at the ground.

"Yes? And what will you do? Scourgify the Death Eaters mouths?! When was the last time that you actually duelled against someone?"

'That was uncalled for,' thought Harry, looking at the mother trying to fight her tears. 'And maybe I should do something about people not knowing how to defend themselves.'

Climbing down from the train, he noticed that an almost pronounced line separated most of the traditional Pureblood families from the rest of the crowd. A lot of suspecting and annoyed glaring was thrown between the groups and many Aurors were walking the "line" and all around the platform. Harry noticed that many members of the traditional Slytherin families were looking around and at their neighbouring families with concerned looks. 'Someone has to do something about that too,' he thought to himself. 'We can't leave these people with only the option to help Tom in order to save them. Tom will pressure those families while recruiting and they must know that they have options and allies.'

"Harry dear!" he heard a calling from the other side of the platform.

Reaching the crowd of redheads, he was engulfed in a worm hug.

"Why won't you come to us, dear?"

"I'm listening to Dumbledore's advice and returning to the Dursleys for a couple of weeks. Then, I'll be at my place. It is protected, and I won't add to the danger people face," he said and thought 'and I have important things to do and don't need people looking over my shoulder.' "I was going to ask your children to come there with me. That way they'll be off your hands and free you to your order business."

"Not here, dear," said Molly, looking frantically around. "You need us to help you get there? And where is your trunk, dear? I can ask the twins to get it for you if you like."

"No need, Molly. My trunk is right here," he said, taking his shrunken trunk from his pocket. "And I believe that my relatives will be waiting outside. Otherwise, I can always Apparate there."

"Don't say that with all the Aurors around. Someone might hear you and you'll be in trouble."

"Well, I believe that our Aurors have better things to do than enforce underage magic regulations, so I'll take my chances with them." He smiled to her.

He looked around and asked "Molly, where are Hermione's parents?"

"Hermione's parents! The Aurors didn't let any Muggles on the platform, so they will be waiting outside."

"And is anyone standing guard on them?"

Molly just looked uncomfortable.

"Come, Hermione – We are getting out to them," he said and walked away at a brisk pace.

Outside the platform, they found a large crowd of confused parents.

"Harry, have you already met my parents? Dr. Emma Granger and Dr. Dan Granger."

"You can leave the 'Dr.' part," smiled Emma. "We heard so much about you. How was your school year?"

Harry and Hermione exchanged nervous looks.

"Eventful," he finally answered, "this is not the time or the place for school tales. What happened here?"

"We don't really know. Some bloke in dark blue robes, that looked like some kind of uniform, was standing here earlier and told all non-magical people that we will not be able to enter the platform this year."

"This is too dangerous, Mr. Granger. I'll see if I can do some thing about it."

He turned and walked back to the platform. Farther on, near the 'borderline', he saw a lone Auror standing guard. She was standing tall with her wand at hand, and with her long blonde hair, dark blue eyes and dark blue uniform she looked quite aristocratic to Harry's eyes. He walked to her cautiously.

"Excuse me ma'am…"

"And now you call me ma'am, Mr. Potter?" She said, flashing her eyes purple for a second.

"Tonks!"

"It is Ms. Tonks to you, Mr. Potter."

"So kill me for making an honest mistake, Ms. Nymphadora Tonks."

"This isn't fair, Harry. I'm on duty and can't give you the appropriate punishment right now."

"About this – all the Muggle parents are concentrated just outside the platform, open for an attack on them. Can you come and help me keep guard until most of them are gone?"

"Let me see what I can do." Turning around, she addressed a familiar man. "Senior Auror Shacklebolt, Mr. Potter here, informs me of a potentially dangerous situation outside the platform. Request permission to investigate, sir!"

"Go ahead, Auror Tonks, and take Auror Richards here to help."

"Yes, sir!" She replied and moved toward the entrance with Auror Richards on her tail.

"Thank you, Mr. Potter," said Kingsley, winking at Harry. "I will probably see you later on this week."

Harry smiled and walked after Tonks.

"We are here to guard Muggles?!" Reproached Auror Richards.

"You are here to guard Hogwarts student's families. Just do as your commander, Shacklebolt, instructed you."

With that, Harry turned around and walked back to Hermione and her parents, with Tonks beside him.

"Thanks, Harry."

"Think nothing of it. Does your home have any kind of protection around it?"

"No, Harry. Professor Dumbledore promised to do something about it, last Christmas, but did nothing, and I don't have the knowledge to do it myself."

"Do you have any ideas, Tonks?"

"Not really. Usually we could have asked Bill, but he isn't capable of hard magical work yet. You can ask the goblins, but their services usually come with a high price tag."

"I'll look into this tomorrow," Harry promised, "and, Tonks, owl me if you think of any possible solution. In the meantime, can you get them any kind of emergency Portkey, or something like it?"

"Here is my Portkey. It will take you you-know-where. It's not under Fidelius anymore, but it's still very heavily warded and quite secured. You," she said, looking at Hermione's parents, "will probably lose consciousness until you get help, because of the Muggle repelling wards, but its better than death at the hands of the Death Eaters."

"Thank you for your kind help," responded Mr. Granger, smiling at Tonks. "We will go now and have fun."

"Take care. I'll call you later tonight."

After a short hug with Hermione, they were gone.

He looked around the emptying train station to see Petunia standing silently alone at the corner.

"Hello Petunia. Are you alone here?"

"Yes Harry. Vernon has been building his temper for a few weeks now. I believe that he's been doing so since your Headmaster visited our home last year. I don't know what to do any more. I came here alone to try and avoid a confrontation but I'm afraid that it's only delaying the inevitable…"

"Let's just go back to the house."

"Harry, where is your school trunk?"

"In my pocket."

"Oh…"

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

"How long are you planning to stay?"

"A fortnight, I think."

"Will you have visitors?"

"I don't know, Petunia. I don't think so. I'd prefer to go out and meet people. It should make things easier."

"Will your Headmaster come to pick you up?"

Harry almost lost it at that. "My Headmaster is dead!"

"Dumbledore? Dead?!"

For a minute, Harry was amazed by the fright he heard in his aunt's voice. It was an echo of the fright that clenched his heart.

"Yes. One of my teachers killed him on Voldemort's orders."

"Are we lost?"

"I want to believe we're not."

"Who is going to fight him, then?"

"I am," he said with so much sarcasm and self-loathing that the conversation ended in tense silence.

Pulling into Privet Drive, Petunia Dursley looked at Harry, not knowing who she was more afraid of— Voldemort, Vernon, or Harry himself. She was both amazed and terrified by the fact that it was probably her skinny nephew who was the most frightening of the lot. That was probably due to the fact that he had the most reasons to hate her.

Standing out of the car, Petunia looked at Harry and said quietly, "Uncle Vernon asked Marge to be here. I think he is looking for a confrontation. Please, take it easy on him."

"Oh, crap! Can't anything be simple today? I'm going straight to my room!" With a soft popping sound, he Disapparated, leaving only slight air turbulence behind.

"Boy!!"

The voice of Vernon cry echoed throughout the house.

"Don't make me wait for you!"

The shouting went on.

Harry sealed up his room's door and lay down on his small uncomfortable bed.

'These are going to be two very long weeks,' he thought.

He tried to think through his day; making mental lists and making up his mind on issues on which his opinion would be needed. He felt that his head was so full with thoughts and memories that he couldn't even stack them in metaphoric piles in his head, let alone keep them in any kind of logical order, to use in reaching any kind of conclusions. For once he understood Dumbledore's view regarding the Pensieve – he really needed one.

Then there was all the knowledge he needed. During the last school year, Dumbledore started to broaden his knowledge beyond the normal school curriculum. Harry thought he now knew most of the knowledge Dumbledore had regarding the Horcruxes Tom had made and their whereabouts, but he knew almost nothing regarding their destruction. He knew that Dumbledore had a "fight" with one of them, and had struggled to narrowly win. Then, there was the diary that Harry himself had destroyed. The main problem was that he currently didn't have any basilisk, or fresh basilisk fangs to use, and, honestly, he didn't want one, either. A basilisk might be handy if he could control it like Tom did, but that couldn't be the 'Power Tom knows not' and it would be too dangerous to handle around people. Then there were his fighting skills; he didn't want to blame Dumbledore, but he couldn't understand just how Dumbledore had known about the prophecy all those years and not seen that Harry got better training than your average student.

That was another problem; Dumbledore, with all his power and knowledge and twinkling eyes, surely had known how to evade giving answers to unwanted questions, and to keep people as much as possible – in the dark. One of his secrets had even gotten him killed. He'd been asked countless times for the reason which led him to put that much confidence in Snape, but did he ever give an answer? Harry couldn't help but worry himself about the many dangers which hid behind Dumbledore's many secrets.

So, where could he start? Train to fight? Look for the Horcruxes? Defend his friends?

What Harry needed was someone to help him think – he needed Hermione.

Luckily, one of the domains in which Muggles did considerably better than wizards was the field of communication. He could just go downstairs and ring Hermione up. Dudley, of course, had had a telephone in his room for years, now. Harry, on the other hand, wasn't permitted to use the common one. Well, this wasn't going to stop him this time around. Maybe he should get himself one of those cell phones.

Getting to the door, he jumped back from the banging noise coming from his door.

"You will come right away when I call you and I will see none of your freakishness in my home!" He bellowed. "Get out! Get out now!!"

'Already purple,' thought Harry. He pondered, for a minute, the possibility of not coming out and letting Vernon cool down for the night, but he really wanted to ring Hermione.

"Right, just step back from the door." He waited for the sound of Vernon's steps backing from the door, and then silenced it before opening the door and stepping out into the first floor hall. Vernon had never actually hit him before, but nor was he ever that angry with Harry.

"Let's just go downstairs. I need to use the phone."

If possible, Vernon got even angrier. Before Vernon could gather enough air to continue with his shouting, Harry just walked past him, down the stairs, through the corridor and into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator, took out a bottle of orange juice, picked out a glass and sat at the table opposite to Petunia, who was looking at him cautiously.

"You wanted to have a word, didn't you?"

Uncle Vernon was gob smacked. Not only did that boy sit in his kitchen table drinking his juice, but he was totally indifferent about the whole thing. The Potter boy should have been cowering from him, and certainly not looking him in the eyes.

"How dare you speak to my brother in that tone?! He took you in, in the middle of the night; put a roof over your head, clothes on your back, food on your plate…"

"Yes, I've heard this conversation before, Marge. No need to repeat the whole thing."

"Ungrateful, as always. Just like your good for nothing…" For some reason Marge couldn't finish her sentence after meeting Harry's cold eyes.

"You think your freak of a Headmaster will come back to help you, being rude to us in our own home? "

Harry's face lost any sign of life. "You don't need to worry, Vernon – he was murdered few days ago."

"Dead?!" bellowed Vernon. "You are out of our home right now!"

"Vernon dear…"

"Out! Out!!"

"You can't throw him out. I promised my sister that I would protect the boy," screamed Petunia.

"You do understand that more than you protecting me these days, my presence here is protecting you?"

Vernon didn't take notice. He grabbed Harry by his arm—and, before he could react – pushed him out of the kitchen's door. Then it all went pear-shaped.

Once out side, there was a distinct 'Humming' sound. A large purple-red dome materialized above the Dursley's house. It flickered for a long moment, and then, with a loud 'cracking' sound it disappeared.

'Bugger,' thought Harry. "Inside! Get inside immediately!" he called, looking around him frantically.

The first sign of a problem was a silent popping noise to the left of the back yard, where an outline of a translucent figure just appeared. A second later, the figure disappeared again with the same silent sound.

"Inside! Quickly!" he shouted, trying to think of some kind of solution to avoid the approaching fight. He had no illusion regarding his capability to fend off alone a group attack by Death Eaters, while protecting his relatives from harm.

Once again, a mixture of popping and cracking noises was heard all around the yard, while figures in black cloaks appeared all around them. Harry was led by his instincts and shouted a "Stupefy" at one of the closer figures, turning to the side and summoning another one's wand using a powerful 'Expelliarmus' charm. He was ready to hit himself as the first figure was 'Enervated' immediately, and the other just took out a second wand from his pocket.

'This is not a schoolyard fight,' he reprimanded himself.

Then he heard a well known voice mocking him. "Harrykins is all alone and helpless. What will you do now that the old fool can't save you any more?"

'Keep the conversation up and stall,' he thought to himself.

"Blimey, Tommy boy again sends his ship of fools to do his dirty work for him. Is he ready to come and rescue you up this time?"

All the while, he was trying to push his relatives back into the house and place himself between the Death Eaters and them.

"Trying to protect the Muggles?"

"Oh, sorry for my rudeness, let me do the introductions. Family, this is Bellatrix Lestrange. Bella is an insane, sadistic mass-murderer, and a groupie of half-blood, Tommy boy."

"Bella, fellows – this is my family: Vernon, this good for nothing lump of fat; Petunia, the jealous, petty sister of my mother; Marge, a breeder of mean dogs and foul language; and, somewhere inside, Dudley, the inbreed of them all. You should know about the problems of inbreeding, don't you Bella?"

'Why doesn't anybody come?' he thought. 'There should have been at least an Auror coming to investigate all the Spellwork in a Muggle neighbourhood. Maybe they have orders to leave me alone this year, and a few 'Stupefies' won't raise the alarm any more. I should up the spell level.'

"Bella, the last time we met, we were interrupted in the middle of a lesson. Do you want to test my progress?"

He concentrated all his hate towards her, and transferred all his hatred for Tom and his Death Eaters to Bella herself. He thought about the suffering she deserved for all the pain that she had caused. He concentrated on the warm filling of a well served revenge. Then he looked up and into Bella's eyes.

Bella looked wide eyed at the blood-red ray of magic heading her way. She tried raising a round metal-looking shield on her hand, but the curse just pierced it and threw her off her feet, screaming her lungs out in agony.

Harry kept his wand pointing at her. He was looking amazed at the convulsing body in front of him and noting the frozen Death Eater's figures all around the yard. Seconds felt like hours for him and he finally broke down the spell. He stood there feeling light headed and very nauseous, sickened by his own deeds.

"Was I a good student, Professor Lestrange?" he asked of the panting woman lying in front of him, quietly.

That was the time Vernon chose to interfere.

"Get out off my land, all you freaks!" he shouted and kicked Bella in the ribs. That was his last deed, since the next moment a well-placed cutting curse, from one of the surrounding Death Eaters, who just regained his right mind, threw him to the pavement, almost cutting his torso in two.

"Vernon!" Harry heard Petunia's shrike.

He turned and 'Stupefy' her before she could step out of the door. He had no concentration to reserve for looking after his relatives running around the yard.

At that moment, a series of Apparating sounds were heard around the house. 'The cavalry, finally,' he thought as he ran, looking for shelter to fight from.

He looked in horror as one of the incoming people was met with a green ray of magic, almost as soon as he arrived, and dropped soundlessly to the ground. Another was hit with a blasting curse which shattered a hastily conjured shield, and threw the person onto the house wall.

Another Apparating person used a cutting course to cut off the wand hand of the Death Eater who used the killing curse earlier. Two others had stunned two of the remaining Death Eaters. Suddenly, Harry was joined behind the car by Dudley.

"What part of 'stay inside' didn't you understand?"

"I'm going to get them."

"No you're not. Just stay here and hide, or I'll stun you like I did your mother."

Harry raised his head and stunned a Death Eater who tried to curse one of the probable Aurors from the back. He went on and summoned the Death Eater's both wands, just in case.

"Thanks," mouthed the Auror and went on looking for more enemies.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Bella raise her head from the ground. She shot an unknown dark blue curse at one of the Aurors, which dropped him to the ground, crying in pain. Harry saw a Death Eater running towards him and getting hit in the waist by one of the Aurors. Another was suddenly walking backwards from the yard, holding Dudley as a shield. Harry looked into the man's eye with only one word resonating in his mind – 'No!' a second later the Death Eater was blown to the ground.

That marked the end of the fight. Suddenly, all capable Death Eaters disappeared from sight and a weary silence descended on the place.

"Are you guys alright?" asked one of the men. "Senior Auror Stanford Lucas, by the way."

"Harry," he said, shaking the man's hand.

"My uncle there tried to fight them off by kicking Bellatrix Lestrange in the ribs. It wasn't a good idea. I had to stun my aunt to prevent her from joining him. How did you do? I saw one of your Aurors hit by a killing curse."

"Stan then, and yes," the man said sadly. "Auror Drea Richards. She was my trainee in the Auror academy. I have two other Aurors wounded, one of them severely; they were transferred to St. Mungo's, together with the wounded Death Eaters. One of them is Adrian Pucey, who you probably know. We don't know the other two."

"Who are the dead?"

Unmasking the Death Eater who tried to use Dudley as a shield, he saw the empty face of Gregory Goyle. On his forearm was a freshly burnt dark mark. Harry stood there mourning for the choices his schoolmate made, the ones which made him Harry's first kill.

The other one was Alecto Carrow.

"What are you going to do now?"

"Revive my aunt, and go somewhere safe. It isn't safe for us here anymore. If you need me for the investigation, owl me and I'll come to the ministry."

"Will do."

"Err, Auror Lucas?"

"Call me Stan, Harry. We fought Death Eaters together."

"I'm a little embarrassed to ask, but can I levitate my aunt inside? I'm still under aged, you know."

Stan looked at him in shock, and then just started laughing. "Just be careful not to knock her head on the doorpost. St. Mungo's is busy enough tonight," he said, and went to look for witnessing neighbours.

When Petunia woke up, she was lying on the couch in the drawing room.

"Dudley?" she asked with tears in her eyes.

"He's right here," Harry answered kindly. He didn't know why, but he couldn't be mean to that woman.

"Vernon?" she asked with a shaking little voice.

Harry shook his head. "We couldn't have done anything for him. They took his body to make it presentable, and will bring it to the funeral home tomorrow. Marge had her memory erased, and will wake up in the morning thinking her brother had a stroke. I don't like it either, but the knowledge will do her no good."

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know yet, but this place isn't safe anymore. We need to get somewhere safe. Let's go and visit Mrs. Figg."