/Standard disclaimers apply

A/N: Warning: the depiction of the final battle in the third chapter is somewhat gory, but I didn't feel that it alone warranted M-rating for the story.

One Man Army

Chapter 1: Here I Stand

Harry Potter was standing in front of a door. He had managed to sneak in to the building using his invisibility cloak, and behind that closed door the Annual General Assembly of Voldemort's Dark Army was in progress.

The Death Eater they had managed to capture and interrogate earlier had provided Harry with some intelligence about the probable layout of the room, and Harry had planned his assault strategy accordingly. There should be a relatively large open space at the back of the room, with heavy tables filled with sandwiches, pastries, pies and refreshments that could be turned over for cover. The Death Eaters should be sitting with their backs to the door, with the Inner Circle at the front and then progressively greener troops towards the back. That should work in favour of Harry, as the best fighters they had would be further away, and behind their own people. They wouldn't probably care too much about friendly fire and would be throwing curses over their younger comrades without showing much remorse on the occasional unlucky one that would get hit by one, but that was okay with Harry.

The strategy Harry had devised for the battle was a simple and straight forward one: first, blast through the door. Second, fire a few blasting hexes at the attending crowd. Third, dive for cover, and then start moving them bastards down with more energy efficient piercing curses. There were a lot of bastards to move down, and although Harry was a very powerful wizard, there was no point in wasting energy with some flashy spell work. And Harry had always been better with simple power-to-purpose magic, all the swishes and flicks needed for more delicate work were beyond Harry's temperamental nature. Also, in this operation timing was crucial. He didn't have one minute to waste. Thus; hit them fast, hit them hard.

Harry had spent a lot of time on the firing range back at their hideout, and could fire his piercing curses with devastating speed and accuracy. They flew fast and true, and the extremely sharp, dull grey spell signature was almost impossible to see, at least when it was coming straight to ones face. Nothing like the swirling and flashing green of the killing curse, and a small hole through the forehead killed the enemy equally quickly without the overly long incantation or wasteful invoking of soul magics. And anyway, Harry had never been able to feel the necessary contempt for human life to cast the Avada Kedavra properly. And yes, he had tried.

Harry took a few deep breaths and fingered the device hanging on his neck. The whole outcome of this battle rested on the device working properly. The theory behind was a sound one (at least as far as Harry had understood Hermione's explanations, that is, about one tenth of the way), but they hadn't been able to test it properly. But even then there would be Fate, the eternal pain in Harry's ass, playing her games. Hermione was sure that the prophecy meant The Magic was on his side, but Harry wasn't so sure. If magic really wanted Harry to fulfil the prophecy, surely it would have ensured that the rebounding killing curse had actually done it's job that night almost twenty years earlier, wouldn't it? Some kind of amplification effect when countered by the sacrifice of a loving mother could surely be used to sever any connections to horcruxes, right?

If everything went with the plan, this would be a massacre. It wouldn't be the first one in this war, but hopefully it would be the last one. Or, if the plan failed, he would be dead. Probably very quickly. But at least there weren't other people around to get themselves killed in this one.

With a final sigh Harry drew his holly and phoenix feather wand from its holster that was strapped at his arm, concentrated on the desired effect and threw his strongest blasting curse at the door. At the same time as the spell connected with the door, he flipped a switch on the device, already running towards the hole that would be all that would be left of the door.

The Battle had begun.