An: *Insert huffy disclaimer here*

An2: Warning, some gore at the start.

-:-

Chapter Seven: Return

"My name is Ginny… My name is Ginny… Ginny… Weasley. My name, is Ginny Weasley."

The soft words were spoken with some desperate triumph. The broken mind of the poor girl crushed into a too-small cupboard was slowly fraying further. Her name only now just in reach. Noises, in the room beyond. She twisted slightly, so that her eye was pressed against the keyhole of the cupboard, she could see into his bedroom.

He was there, walking… no stumbling, from door to chair, his eyes alight with a strange glow. Royal dusky purple, like the very last notes of a setting sun on an Autumn evening. A harsh whisper reverberated throughout the room. The very sound of it made her teeth ache and abruptly his posture snapped straight, his white blonde hair waving from the motion. Then, without any warning at all. His hair shrunk into his scalp, growing dark brown, then inky black. Messy and vibrant. Almost like Harry's hair.

No, exactly like Harry's hair. The dusky purple glow remained in his eyes however, and another harsh whisper rolled forth, though this time without the teeth-achingly deep timbre. And with multiple, overlapping tones.

"Young Draco, this will not do at all. There is only room, enough, for one."

The boy pitched backwards, his chin jerking down in a soundless howl as his hands splayed against the wall near Ginny's cupboard. It was nearly impossible to see anything at this angle but she could still hear.

"There now. That's better. We have need of you."

Steady footsteps now as the boy approached a polished silver vanity set into the wall, the harsh whisper had become sibilant, and singular.

"For the first time young Draco, We feel whole. You have done Us a great service."

As he approached the vanity Ginny could see something was horribly wrong. Where Draco Malfoy had once stood, pale, blonde hair, blue-grey eyes… Now stood someone else entirely.

He was tall, elegant in his posture and refined in a way Draco Malfoy had never been in life. Jet black hair, vivid, killing-curse-green eyes and long spidery fingers that seemed entirely too thin. In them was clutched a straight razor, one usually used for shaving.

"Your meagre talents at speech have left this body unprepared for Us. We require sacrifice."

To Ginny's growing horror the boy… man, brought the knife up to his own mouth and with a sickening sound the man's tongue fell with a splat to the wooden floor. A thick trail of blood following it. Resisting the urge to cry out Ginny watched as the man's hand came up and with several elegant motions began to use magic to draw flecks of silver from the mirror. At first a trickle, then a solid stream. Pulling them from the edges and forming the shape of a gleaming silver tongue in midair. After a moment, blood still streaming from the man's mouth, the tongue darted between his teeth and affixed itself to the writhing stump of the severed appendage.

When next he spoke it was with a layer of power that made Ginny Weasley finally forget her name.

"Come child, now that We have a body, you can be of service to Us. Come now, don't be afraid. We desire nothing of your… limited charms."

Without meaning to, the girl pushed open the abruptly unlocked cupboard and stood smoothly. Far more smoothly than anyone who had been locked in a cramped cupboard should be able to achieve. Without any kind of hesitation or gracelessness she moved over and knelt at the man's feet. Gazing up at him with a blank stare, she could clearly see his new silver tongue flashing in the light as he spoke. His vivid green eyes exciting memories within her.

"Tell Us everything you know about Harry James Potter."

-:-

The familiar frieze above his and Hermione's bed in the master bedroom of the manor was the first thing Harry saw as his vision swum back to consciousness. His body was blissfully free of pain, more so than almost any other morning he could remember. Experimentally he lifted an arm free of the covers and hauled himself up to a sitting position, no stiffness in his back or arms, none at all. Eyes wide in a small measure of shock he swung to a sitting position, feet on the ground before he could even register the thought to do so.

He almost wept with relief, he couldn't remember the last time he'd been able to sit up in bed so easily he reached around behind himself to his lower back, half expecting the matted mass of scars to have vanished. But they were still there. He went to move to stand but an excited shriek sounded from the door and he was immediately swamped with affection over his bond with Hermione before she engulfed him in one of her trademark hugs. Her body shook and, even as his arms came up to hug her back, he felt his shoulder dampen from her tears.

"I'm alright love."

"I know, I know. But…"

"I know, I'm here. It's okay."

They simply sat there for an interminable period, her in his lap, him rocking the both of them with quiet whispers of reassurance. Eventually she sat back on his lap, arms around his neck as she looked at his eyes with her own, slightly damp, gaze.

"Don't do that to me again."

"You know I can't promise that."

She huffed and swatted his chest before pecking his lips and sliding off his lap to stand.

"How's your back?"

Harry went easily with the change of topic, they both had a duty to the Regiment now and neither of them wanted to argue about it.

"It's better than it's been in a long time. Was that your doing?"

Hermione shook her head slightly with a frown.

"Umbridge and the Order's healers did a full diagnosis on you. They concluded that the pain and stiffness was mostly psychosomatic, all in your mind, but there were some pretty horrendous kinks in our magic around each scar. They had to drug the both of us to undo the damage. You'll probably always have some stiffness, but the worst of it should be gone."

"Well that's a relief."

What went unsaid between them was that this would be almost easier on her than him. He'd become somewhat resigned/used to the stress. But it was harder on her to deal with the side effects of it in the mornings. Especially in winter. Maybe she'd be able to sleep in for once.

"How are our new friends settling in?"

"They took the caretaker's cottage on the grounds but accepted a communications brooch so that we can contact them. I think the implication is that they expect to be given mostly free reign, but are in fact here to help our cause."

"More or less lines up with what we expected of them doesn't it?"

With a smooth motion Harry rises to his feet and meanders over to the closet, completely starkers. Hermione couldn't help but snicker.

"Enjoying the view love?"

"Always, your pale arse is a lovely sight in the morning." Another snicker "Get some clothes on and meet me in your office? Sirius dumped a bunch of progress reports on me when we arrived and then vanished back to Bones Manor"

Harry chuckled wryly as he dragged on a shirt

"That dog, remind me to tease him about it next time we see him".

As he walked around he noticed a distinct stiffness in his knee where he'd been shot and couldn't help a minor limp. Hermione's sympathetic voice from the middle of the room washed over him.

"They say it'll get better with time, but you lost a lot of nerve connections when you tore it in the fight on the jeep."

He frowned a moment, testing the motion of his limb.

"Just one more thing to to deal with I suppose. How's the Regiment?"

Hermione filled him in on the training of the Regiment as he hauled on some clothes, it mostly boiled down to 'business as usual' but there was one note of concern.

"The Knights haven't made any moves at all. Either they're laying low or they've left the country entirely. It looks like they're settling in for the long game."

Harry frowned, they couldn't be young men, it'd been decades since their war. He voiced his concerns and Hermione merely huffed in annoyance.

"They're wizards love. Even if they're in their seventies or eighties now, they'll live for another hundred years or so if they're as strong as we've been led to believe."

Frown deepening, Harry marched for the door.

"Then we have a problem. Let's talk to the squad leaders and our advisory team. We need a path of action."

Almost as an afterthought he reached down to his lapel and spoke with clear tones into the communications brooch he wore there.

"Victor, Lucrezia, meet us at the entrance to the manor. We're having a meeting."

-:-

With Alastor back in the fold their advisory team was significant in its scope: With Dan, Sirius, Alastor, Amelia, Umbridge, the two mercenaries, and the twins, they had a solid group of people to bounce idea off. The squad leaders were icing on the cake. Mad Eye was particularly vocal.

"They're canny, the knights, they'll have holed up under the _fidelius_ and won't even be remotely accessible. And as we're on our home turf we can't do much to bait them out. What we _can_ do is start blessing every inch of ground we can."

Harry raised an eyebrow at the man.

"I thought you weren't religious Alastor."

The grizzled veteran growls and sweeps one hand in a cutting motion.

"I'm not, and don't start that smart arse shit with me Potter. The term is a holdover from the middle ages when the Catholic wizards had the monopoly on this kind of magic. Umbridge here could tell you more about it's roots but the crux of the idea is that you charm a patch of ground with a massive dose of neutral magical energy that's keyed to morph into a containing spell the moment something starts feeding off it. The Walpurgis Daemons will be attracted to the magical patches and will try to consume them to gain power, only to be trapped in the spell. We can lure their foot soldiers out of hiding. And make their efforts to build numbers futile. Only issue is that we're going to have to be careful about the stronger ones. Trapped Soldier Daemons anyone can handle with a bit of gumption, but if a Greater Daemon or some other nasty gets loose we'll have hell to pay."

He rubs his chin a moment before adding.

"Other issue is once they cotton on they'll have the chance to counter us with traps, or they could just spring a whole army on us if they wanted."

He raises one hand to his thinning hair in a gesture of frustration.

"Plan needs work I'll admit, but it's a way forward."

The twins lean forward, eyes alight with possibilities. One, Hermione can't tell which and her bond with Harry is suspiciously quiet, speaks with great interest.

"How close would these… patches, be to the Daemons to lure them out?"

Victoria Umbridge answers with a tired voice. Hermione looks up, examining the woman properly for the first time in months and can see that she's waning fast.

"Not close at all, the Daemons will be attracted from hundreds of kilometers away to the source of the raw magic. Such sites are rare in the modern world and the Daemons, hungry as they always are, are sensitive to such places to an immense degree. The truest danger is if we manage to accidentally trap a Greater Daemon not aligned with the Knights at all. They could use such an event to ruin us in the public eye with a PR shell company. You must tread extremely cautiously if you choose to continue with this route."

All the occupants of the table sit back for a moment before Amelia Bones' heated voice springs up. Beside her Sirius winces dramatically.

"Do you mean to tell me that you intend to lure and trap summoned magical entities in the hope of destroying them, without any way of controlling what strength, or even how many of them arrive?"

Dan scowls.

"Calm yourself. No one's decided anything yet."

"The hell do you know about it Muggle? Let the wizards discuss magic. Go play with your explosives."

Harry surged to his feet beside Hermione before she could even think of stopping him, she was a little numb by the angry words from Amelia, but Harry was a man of action and his bond with Dan was profound.

"Get out."

His voice was filled with so much fury that Hermione was sure that if they could have bottled it, the Twins could have made a weapon of mass destruction with its essence. Amelia at the other end of the table looked taken aback for a minute before she stood and pointed a finger with cold surety at the young Potter.

"Be careful young man, this Regiment of yours exists at the Realm's pleasure. You should still be in school. Never mind putting my niece in danger in some foreign country. Let your betters handle this before you get another one of your underlings killed."

Hermione's hand shot up and gripped her lover's forearm, trying desperately to remind him of the situation, that he was confronting the head of state for magical Britain. But he was too far gone.

"Get her out of my home Sirius. Before she says something that makes me remove her from the wards permanently."

The prisoner of Azkaban meets his Godson's eyes for several tense seconds before he stands and ushers a still furious Amelia from the room with a surprising amount of strength and vigor. When the door slams shut behind them, powered by an errant flick of Harry's wrothful magic, he finally seems to cool down a touch and allows Hermione to tug him down into his seat.

"You have too few allies to be alienating them Potter."

Victor Vestaldt's even and level voice rolls across the table with it's richly accented tones. Hermione can almost feel Harry resisting the urge to flip the older man off before he finally answers.

"Her own thoughtlessness and bigotry alienated her Victor. Nothing else to it."

Dan's voice interjects with a clipped tone.

"All the same lad, we need allies in places of power or this is going to go tits up fast. I've heard worse from worse."

Harry looks up to meet his adopted father's gaze and sees an understanding but disappointed frown. Shame-faced the young man looks down at his lap for a moment before lifting his head again and looking at each in the room in turn.

"Bigotry was the rallying cry that started this war, and was the driving force behind Grindlewald's war too. We can't afford to let that kind of opinion fester in our councils."

He waves a hand over the map table in front of them, indicating the greater British Isles.

"This place is our home, and these German fucks have invaded it. We need a plan to rout them by this time tomorrow."

He frowns briefly before continuing.

"Fred, George, work with Umbridge to create a workable, portable trap. We might not use it, but better safe than sorry. Dan, get the regiment to a war footing, including the new members, I want a plan and eta on my desk by nineteen-hundred hours tonight. Alastor, work with Victor and Lucrezia to understand their talents and skills, then work with Dan on how best to integrate them into the Regiment."

He stands there for a minute and Hermione almost watches him in wonder. She'd thought of him as a man rather than a boy for a while, but seeing him actually take control of the disparate forces they had access to and create a course of action solidified the concept to her.

Harry had grown up.

-:-

Emma rocked little baby John and stared out the window. The staccato rattle-crack of the regiment's rifles echoed up and down the rolling hills of Wales. Loud militant shouting reached up to her where she was on the third story of the enormous Potter manor and the wife and mother of two, or was that three? Started to weep.

She couldn't handle this tension and waiting, her daughter was being led to an honest to goodness war she didn't have a single say in the matter. Strong arms wrapped around her shoulders and she let herself be drawn forwards into the embrace she'd known for nearly two decades. Dan's soft voice whispered in her ear but she didn't hear the words. Too wrapped up in her own preemptive grief to listen. His chapped lips pressed against her forehead briefly and she felt herself and her son be pulled deeper into her husband's embrace.

He rocked her slightly, just as she had been doing with John, and eventually she realized the sound of the rifles had stopped. How long had they been there?

She'd never know.

-:-

Victor leaned against the doorframe leading into the caretaker's cottage situated on the grounds of Potter Manor. He and Lucrezia had been granted it for the duration of their stay in Britain. The Regiment was a startling endeavour; school children being used as soldiers. He glanced down at the intelligence report in his hand and scowled. Britain's Auror force had been shredded to a mere twenty percent operational numbers, and those were tied up handling regular police work. The Unspeakable department was deep in research for the war effort, but had few combat operational members, and the hit-wizard corps had been completely annihilated in the battle last July.

This motley crew of teenagers was the only standing magical army in Britain. He'd asked the man the 'soldiers' called the Captain why there weren't more magical adults fighting, only to find the man was a muggle. They'd both gone to Moody for the answer.

The intractable man had boiled it down to one easy statement: Magic was hard. For most witches and wizards, magic was like playing a finely tuned instrument. It took a lot of practise, and most people could only ever manage a decent tune*(1). There were plenty of witches and wizards, but because magic itself promoted laziness (household charms were a classic example of this) almost no magicals bothered to study magic seriously after leaving school. Most had a very specific field of talent, and out of those fields most were utterly useless on a battlefield. Furthermore magicals as a whole tended to be unfit and lazy.

Children fresh out of school were still in the mental state of learning new things and striving to better themselves. They hadn't sunk into the lethargy of magical adulthood and lost their finely honed talents. As such, depressingly enough, children were the ideal candidates for magical soldiers. Which was why seventeen and eighteen year olds went straight from Hogwarts into the auror academy if their marks were high enough.

It had come as quite a shock to both Dan and Victor that in the last true magical war, the end of which was over two hundred years ago, almost the entirety of the armies of both sides of the conflict (the Spanish and French) were made up of under twenty year olds. In fact, over half of both armies were made up of soldiers under sixteen.

It was a sobering statistic.

Victor was startled out of his thoughts when a slim hand clasped the crook of his elbow and a soft voice, husky from fatigue, spoke through the fugue of his meandering mind.

"Come my love, rest a while, they will train for many days yet and we need to settle in."

He turned and smiled softly at Lucrezia before moving into the cottage with her. Wales was beautiful and the work was good, they could make a life here.

-:-

"Sir!"

The loud voice of one of the younger members of the regiment cracked across Harry's ears like a whip as the boy called to him from the doorway of Harry's private office.

"Terrel?"

Terrel Selwyn was the youngest member of Dragon Squad. One of the units formed in the wake of the Regiment's restructuring following the mass-desertion they had suffered. He'd been an active member of the Regiment for less than three weeks now and had only just the morning before last qualified with the service rifle in terms of accuracy and pace. He hadn't seen combat yet and, much to Harry's chagin, the newer, greener, members of the Regiment had been given the moniker; gnomes.

"Sir, Diagon Alley is under attack."

Harry didn't think he'd ever moved so fast in his life. He sent a burst of contact to Hermione and the return flash of emotion let him know she understood and was on her way.

"Any detail for me Terrel?"

The slightly younger boy was still stood in the doorway of Harry's office as he donned his armour and gear.

"Nothing much sir, just news of magical combat, the shop fronts are being targeted. I ran to get you as soon as I heard. We called you on your pin but… I guess you didn't have it on."

Harry should have, he'd grown complacent in the time since returning from Poland. He figured James must have been on duty in the Blue Room. That was the name of one of the larger guest suites the Regiment had appropriated as its operations center.

"Fall in then Terrel and we'll see what this is about."

"Sir yes sir."

The travel time wasn't long and they arrived just as a red-faced Susan and Tracey dashed down the corridor, Hermione not far behind them. Harry moved straight to the map table as Sirius and Mad Eye started talking at once.

"Magical combat lad, Auror units three through eight went in and we haven't heard anything since. Shops are burning with magical fire from what we could tell before our scouts pulled out to give us the intel."

"Floo?"

"No Harry, the Leaky Cauldron was the first to go and the Goblins have locked Gringotts down, you'll have to apparate or Elf transfer in."

"Portkey?"

"Wards on the Alley prevent them Potter."

"Right, mobilize the Regiment if you haven't already, James, get to your unit."

"Yes sir"

The boy dashed away and Hermione's slim hand wrapped around Harry's upper arm.

"Tell me what you're thinking love."

Harry frowned at that briefly, there was a time when they didn't have to share thoughts like this verbally, they might have, if only to make things easier to follow for the people around them, but lately they'd ensured to keep the bond between them throttled. They hadn't been able to glean any insight into the lapse they'd had in Poland and now wasn't the time for experimenting.

In answer, he pointed at the middle of the map of Diagon Alley, right over Gringotts, and trailed his finger back to the Cauldron.

"They hit the Cauldron first, so they either entered through it en-masse or had infiltrated the Alley beforehand. Probably the former as if they'd infiltrated the Bank chances are it wouldn't be locked down. That means they probably haven't made it all the way down the forks."

He trailed his finger back along the map of the alley and down the two forking lanes that split around the bank.

"We need to deploy on both lanes, if we only hit one when we hit the crossroads we'll get pinned by both sides and forced back, we need to hit them on both fronts and push them back towards the Cauldron. Even if we can push them out into Muggle London we can at least stop the combat. We know the Knights don't want the attention of the Muggles, yet."

"How do you know it's the Knights?"

Harry frowned in annoyance.

He didn't.

-:-

Tyrant squad was one of the few squads not to be restructured after the influx of gnomes from Hogwarts. They worked too well together not to simply remain together as a squad. Though they had been asked to train replacements if anything ever happened to one of them. Grady was currently sitting on the rim of the top hatch of the Tyranny's turret, watching the squads of infantry stream into the staging area. Potter was standing in front of the tank with The Captain at his side.

The rest of Grady's squad, Tom Luke and Cranky, were all lounging on the hull or poking their heads out of hatches. They were all pretty eager, maybe 'lounging' wasn't the right term.

"You'll be deploying with Fireteams Paragon and Bastion on the Knockturn side of the Bank. Your objective is threefold, drive all the threats before you from the lane, provide cover for your fireteam escorts as they erect a seal on Knockturn Alley to prevent intervention from the darker aspects of Wizarding Britain, and Hold the fork at the Bank when you reach it until reinforcements arrive. Specialist Umbridge will be attached to Fireteam Bastion and will be responsible for sealing knockturn. If at any point specialist Umbridge becomes incapacitated you are to fire the main gun of the Tyranny at the support structure of the entrance to the Alley and collapse it, preventing efficient aid of combatants, clear?"

They all gave affirmative responses and their leader continued.

"Fireteams Victory and Predator will accompany the Command squad and our escorts as we clear the Carkitt Market side of the Bank. When we have cleared the side alleys, including Horizont alley, we will rendezvous with you at the bank fork and push the enemy towards the Cauldron. Clear?"

Grady nodded

"Sir, clear sir."

"Then mount up, five minutes till deployment, expect a warzone gentlemen."

All Grady could hear as he sunk down into the innards of the tank was loud and excited mutters from his gunner.

"Oh Merlin, oh Merlin, oh Merlin…"

-:-

Susan ratcheted the charging bolt of her minimi, eliciting a satisfyingly metallic sound from it's receiver. At her side Tracey and… Fleur, that would never not be weird, were checking magazines on their tactical belts. Two spares only, the damn things could carry a hundred rounds apiece regardless so they didn't need many.

"Thirty seconds!"

The captain's call sounded over the staging ground and there was a roar of sound as the Tyranny's engine revved hard beside them. The snarling beast of war was growling on it's treads, ready for it's maiden battle.

She wished she'd see it in action.

Off to her right were half a dozen gnomes split between four squads and the veteran Regiment members who were… well shepherding them into position. She wished they'd have had a chance to train more before their first engagement but apparently now was when Valmortis was deciding to break his silence.

Victory and Predator had the lowest ratio of gnomes to vets but that didn't make it easier to swallow. Regimentals so green she was sure Neville could have raised them as crops were going to be watching Harry's back in this fight, and it wasn't good enough.

Another, deeper, metallic sound came from in front of her and she winced at the sight of the enormous combat shotgun that the equally enormous Victor was toting around. She wasn't too sure about those mercs, but they had little option in this day and age.

"Ten seconds, form up!"

Her eyes drifted to the command squad even as she moved forwards to join the apparition formation she and the rest of the detachment would be travelling in. Hermione looked a little anxious, but she always seemed to before battle. The girl was more of an academic than a fighter, but she and Harry were too in-tune to not have fighting side by side. Though Susan had noted that synchronicity had waned of late.

Parvati was in full tactical gear with a heavily modified service rifle slung across her chest. It was easy to forget that the girl had more hours logged on the rifle range than anyone else in the Regiment until you saw the hard-bodied young woman. Her eyes hidden behind a pair of dark goggles. The regimental breastplate was almost invisible under the tactical rigging adorning it.

Harry… Harry looked like war. He didn't carry a service rifle but instead had a heavy barreled pump-action shotgun on a sling over his back. The twins had built it to fire the same rune-slugs that their pistols did and Susan had to admit that it was an imposing weapon. His wand already had the Regimental crossguard slipped over it and it was stuck in his belt like a sword.

His eyes were already glowing and the emerald fog that accompanied such events was streaming down his cheeks like ethereal tears.

"Five seconds. Ready!"

Susan closed her eyes and gripped Tracey's hand tightly for a moment before bracing her legs for apparition.

"Four!"

She opened her eyes and shouldered her weapon. It had taken some practise to apparate with it, but it had paid off.

"Three!"

She watched out of the corner of her vision as elves snapped into place around the Tyranny and lifted their arms.

"Two!"

There was a rattle of metallic sounds around her as the gnomes ratcheted the firing bolts on their service rifles.

"One!"

The entire Regiment shouted out their fear with a bellow. Susan joined them, her voice already hoarse from the sheer volume of it.

"Jump!"

With a twist of her body and a flush of dusky purple magic, she and the entire Regiment disapparated with a crack so loud two of the windows on the manor shattered from the force of it.

In the wake of that rush of overwhelming sound Daniel Granger stood with Sirius Black at his side, inexplicable dread gripping his heart.

-:-

Grady loosed the catch at his belt the moment they translated into the alley and shoved the hatch of the tank open, popping up with his rifle primed to get an eye on the situation. He stopped suddenly, his eyes going glassy and blank as he set eyes upon the most beautiful creature he had ever seen in his life.

He could feel hands pulling on his legs but he paid them no mind, doing his best to get out of the tank and go to the new ruler of his entire world. Then thunder exploded around him and the creature vaporized into a fine mist. Shocked and stunned he halted his frantic advance and something un-footed him. Abruptly he fell into the interior of the tank, bashing his helmeted head on the rim of the hatch as he did so, a little dazed, but now very much aware of his surroundings again, he asked with a sharp growl.

"What the fuck was that?"

"Veela master Grady sir. Nasty bitchy veela. Master Twitch killed it for you."

"Thank fuck for that, status gentlemen?"

"Well it's not the Knights Grady, we've got the whole fucking Veela army stuffed into this alley by the look of it. Tank's keeping their allure at bay but the infantry aren't faring so well."

As if to prove his point something heavy thudded against the hull and the whole tank rocked.

"Blasting curse by the feel of it, fuck. We need to kill them."

Getting his bearings back Grady scrambled back up to the periscope for his hatch and started calling targets. The turret swivelled around him and the thick sound of the coaxial machine gun thudded through the interior of the tank as Tommy began to thin the herd.

"Fuck, Twitch be careful there's civvies in the grouping."

"I see em, they're enthralled."

"Bints, making honest men foul. Shred em lad."

Tom's answering sound was grim with intent.

"Yes, sir."

-:-

Thunder sounded next to Susan's ear and she screamed in fright as a whole pillar of the storefront she was hiding in simply ceased to exist. The moment they'd landed Victor had been utterly lost to the Veela army flooding the Alley and had opened fire on the rest of them. Lucrezia had been the first to go down, her entire leg blown cleanly away at the hip. She was dead from shock before she even hit the ground. Tracey had only lived because the blast from Victor's shotgun had hit her dead in the center of her breastplate, she was winded but the magically reinforced plate had held easily and the dazed girl was huddled next to Susan.

Another booming retort echoed through the alley as another stone pillar was blown away and the awning above them began to sag.

"Fuck, Tracey, get up girl we have to move."

It seemed the men and boys of the Regiment had been commanded by the Veela to slaughter the females in their squads because even from where she was sitting Susan could see another three dead Regimental females lying in the street, large bullet wounds in their arms and necks.

There was a heavy thud from behind them that rocked the alley slightly and Susan's eyes widened. That was the main gun of the Tyranny that whole squad was made up of men, if they had been enthralled then this was utterly lost. A somewhat quieter, but still very loud, crash of falling metal resounded behind them and Susan turned to see a grim faced Harry standing over a fallen Victor Vestaldt. His eyes were utterly clear and she thanked the gods again that he was so strong willed.

"Angels, form up, Parvati's down."

Behind him Susan could see Hermione supporting a pale and unconscious Parvati who was missing an arm, her rifle hanging limply from it's sling.

"We have to reconvene with Specialist Umbridge and push the Veela back, stun any male Regimentals you see and leave them out of the fight."

He strode past with Hermione in tow. Fleur ducked out from behind a building on the other side of the street and the remains of their detachment formed up, all females, only six left. The males were lying unconscious on the ground, or in two cases, dead from defensive bullet wounds to the head.

Susan felt like throwing up, over half of them were simply dead and they'd only been here for less than three minutes. As Harry marched forwards down the street with grim intent, cutting down Veela where they stood and indiscriminately stunning every civilian in his way Susan shuddered. Nothing would be the same after today, even if they won.

The Veela themselves turned out to be somewhat disappointing combatants. They fought with wands and fireballs, both of which were utterly useless against a riled Harry who simply batted their attacks aside with magic of his own. Susan and Tracey reaped a heavy toll from a distance and every few seconds the whole Alley shook with the massive retort of the Tyranny's main gun. A few minutes later they met in the center of the alley, in front of the bank, and saw the swath of devastation the tank had wrought.

Whole buildings had been torn apart and rubble littered the alley. There were almost no civilians at this part of the alley and dead Veela littered the ground. Umbridge was standing in front of the tank maintaining an enormous shield that was deflecting fireballs and spells with impunity. The hull of the tank had seen damage: The metal was melted in several sections and a hole had been burned in one section of the track, snapping it and leaving the vehicle immobile.

It seemed Veela fire could get through their protections.

Harry barked at Umbridge as they approached.

"Status?"

Grady Pierce from Tyrant squad waved from the top hatch of the tank. He was either immune to the allure or the shield was doing something to stop it. Susan had never been more thankful of a muggle artefact in those moments.

"Not too many losses Sir, mostly men in our detachment and they didn't do anything to the tank and nothing to each other. We lost a couple to Veela retaliation but we're okay for the most part."

He patted the tank's hull

"Tyranny's pretty mauled though sir, we'll need to give Cranky time to do repairs before we can even move her out of here."

Harry grimaced.

"We weren't as lucky, heavy losses. Road's clear behind us though, nothing down Carkitt or Horizont, but my magic could be telling me whoppers."

"I doubt it sir, do you want me to send a unit to collect casualties?"

"Yeah… do that. Our males have been stunned for the most part, but we've had fatalities, especially from those first moments."

Grady's voice was grave.

"Understood sir"

Harry turned back to the thoroughfare as Grady yelled at his unit and the main gun of the tank fired again. A massive explosion ripped the ground up near the cauldron and after a moment the incoming attacks ceased.

"That might be it then."

Susan looked at the devastation around them and held back a sob at Harry's tone, it sounded defeated.

It might be it for the battle, but it could also be it for the Regiment as a whole.

-:-

"Amelia"

"No, Merlin's balls Sirius his Regiment of fucking kids just tore up Diagon alley with a muggle tank. I want that whole military organization disbanded."

"Amelia there was an invading force in the alley!"

The irate woman turned to her lover with a scowl.

"As far as the international community is concerned there was a diplomatic peacekeeping force there acting as detainees for Mr Potter as the French are still maintaining that he killed one of their sovereign citizens. They were here to communicate with our ministry regarding extradition. Mr Potter and his regiment just butchered another hundred French citizens in a pitched battle. We have no proof, none, that they were enthralling British citizens."

Sirius staggered slightly as the ramifications slammed home

"Amelia…"

"That's right Sirius, he committed an act of war, and I've got the entire ICW bearing down on me about it."

"Look, you know as well as I do that those Veela were an attacking army. We still have a resident force of Knights fucking Walpurgis on this island and your aurors aren't up to the kind of war that's coming. You lost five whole squads today!"

"My hands are tied Sirius, if we don't hand him over to the ICW they'll come down on us like a ton of bricks."

"They're going to come down on us like a ton of bricks regardless Amelia! Don't you fucking see? There's too much fucking coincidence here. Nothing, absolutely nothing for weeks and weeks and now there's suddenly an army of invading Veela in our CBD? They weren't announced, they didn't warn us beforehand that they were coming."

Amelia paused, a curious look on her face.

"Pitch it to the ICW, as far as we're concerned, they were an armed force unannounced and occupying our public space in a show of force. Our military took losses from friendly fire, that can only be explained by Enthrallment.

You need to legitimize the Regiment on the international stage, make their actions today part of an internal response to a threat from a foreign power. Then it's the French under the microscope, not us."

The curious expression is gone, replaced by derision.

"Don't be naive, we'll both be scrutinized. Investigations would start here and spread out. What if it was found that the French were correct?"

Incredulous now, Sirius slammed a closed fist sideways against the stone walls

"You're kidding Amelia, you know they were attacking us. There're dozens of dead witches in the alley, that only happens when Veela attack a civilized center. Your own police force was nearly wiped out in the attack!"

"Your godson is unstable Sirius. I don't know what he's capable of, and neither does the rest of the world."

"You're serious."

"No that's you idiot."

Scowling now Sirius turns on his heel to leave.

"Poor taste Madam Bones, poor taste."

Amelia's voice had a little shocked quality to it

"Sirius."

"No minister, you've made your position quite clear. I'm going to join the last family I have left. Good luck with your war."

Amelia stood there for several moments, no idea how to proceed until, abruptly, all knowledge of the Regiment abruptly vanished from her mind.

-:-

The ballroom of the manor looked like a triage center. Half the Regiment were on conjured cots. Nursing wounds, or covered by sheets. The rest were either part of the medical unit helping the wounded or, especially in the case of the surviving squad leaders, were being debriefed.

Parvati felt like her head was filled with cotton wool as she swam to consciousness, her whole body ached except for… Her eyes snapped open and she looked down at where her arm used to be. In its place was a yawning space and a stump where her left arm used to be. The stump itself had obviously been prepared with magic, there was a bronze collar around the surviving part of her upper arm and it didn't hurt at all, which spoke more to powerful pain suppression than true healing.

Before she could truly think about what had happened a small hand clasped around her right and she looked across at the tearful face of her sister who sounded like she was close to tears.

"Hey Parv."

"Hey Pad."

The gentle look in her twin's eyes let Parvati know that Padma had seen little of the horror of the battle, but at least she was alive. Padma answered as if knowing Parvati's unspoken question.

"I took a slug to the chest from an enthralled squadmate. I woke up about half an hour ago. Apparently specialist Umbridge got the bullet out of my lung without any trouble."

Such a casual discussion of a typically lethal wound. What had this war done to them? A pause.

"Aren't you supposed to be in India with mother and father?"

Her sister squeezed her hand gently.

"I couldn't leave you behind."

"No chance of reattaching my arm then?"

Her voice was casual but both girls knew her heart was cracking from the strain of putting on a brave face. Padma looked close to tears.

"Umbridge thinks Harry can make you a new arm with magic, but the old one… Victor's shotgun destroyed it completely from what I understand."

Parvati's breath caught in her throat as she remembered those first horrific moments after they landed in Diagon alley.

"How is Victor?"

"Suicidal, Harry had to knock him out again… He killed Lucrezia."

Parvati already knew, but couldn't bring herself to acknowledge it verbally. She couldn't even imagine what the mountain of a man must be going through.

"What the hell happened?"

Padma looked across the hall at the dozens of cots. More than half of which bearing sheets to cover the dead. Her voice was rough and shaky as she spoke.

"It was an ambush, the Veela army positioned themselves in the Alley with the goal of capturing Harry and obliterating our armed division. But they underestimated us, the Tyranny inflicted a crushing defeat to their main forces, Harry was the only thing on our flank stopping the whole Alley to be wiped out."

She took a trembling breath before continuing

"The French are trying to use this as a political move, insisting that the Veela army was there on an extradition mission to collect Harry for crimes against the Veela conclave. Minister Bones is taking a hard line against Harry and Susan is distraught. Sirius brought news that the Minister is throwing Harry under the bus, we're on our own."

Parvati shuddered at the thought of her own family turning against her and couldn't even begin to imagine Susan's frame of mind.

"Harry and Hermione aided Umbridge in putting up a fidelius around the grounds. The specific wording of the charm means that people who aren't under its aegis don't even know of the regiment's existence. The politics of it have been… interesting. Because of the magic involved, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, Harry fought off the entire Veela army by himself."

Parvati chuckled at that, it was exactly the kind of thing that happened to their leader.

"Just another thing to add to the Potter Mythos I suppose. How's he been holding up?"

"I'm alright Parvati."

Apparently the man they'd been talking about was close enough to overhear as he replied to that last question. He looked a little rueful.

"How're you feeling?"

She winced a little at the generally battered feeling still coursing through her.

"I'll be bruised to buggery for the next few days, but otherwise fine. Well… Apart from…"

"You're arm, right, that's why I'm here actually. I can fix you up a new one if you like. Umbridge and Hermione have been going over the magic with me. There are a few in the Regiment that need a limb and I'm apparently what the doctor ordered. We wanted to offer it to you first."

Parvati looked down at the stump of her arm and frowned.

"What kind of replacement are we talking about?"

Harry moved over to that side of the cot and flicked his wand at the space where her arm used to be. A magical image of a bronze replica of her arm super-imposed itself over the space.

"Basically I use sorcery to conjure a prosthetic and then use a crafty bit of transfiguration and charms to make your mind think it's part of your body and control it as such. It'll have full mobility and you'll be able to know instinctively when things are touching it. But I'm afraid to say it'll never have any kind of true sensation and there will have to be an adjustment period where you get used to controlling it."

He shrugs, looking truly apologetic

"On the plus side it'll be basically impervious to damage that doesn't interfere with the magic involved, and if anything ever does happen to it I can just make you a new one."

Parvati sighed lightly under her breath, she was just stalling really. She knew exactly where she was meant to be. The Regiment was the most important thing she could be doing with her life and the loss of an arm, however painful for her personally, would destroy her usefulness to the military order.

She really didn't have any kind of choice.

"Is it going to hurt?"

"Not even a bit, you'll barely feel a thing."

"Go on then, but get Hermione and Umbridge to oversee it. I don't want to end up with a tentacle."

He barked a short laugh, a false laugh. For the first time since waking up she looked past his outward demeanour to the suffering he was hiding.

"And Harry, don't feel guilty about this. I knew what I was signing up for. Especially after we lost Daphne."

He smiled crookedly at her and waved a hand as he wandered off, apparently speechless.

She felt Padma squeeze her other hand and turned to see her twin grinning at her.

"Shut up Padma, I know I've been hit by the same bug they all have."

"He's hot, admit it."

"Fine, yeah, he's hot."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that girls."

The wounded twin squeaked at Hermione's voice as she walked into Parvati's line of sight. Harry looked a little embarrassed as he pulled up a chair alongside the cot and placed a warm hand on her shoulder.

"This is going to feel a little weird, but it shouldn't hurt a bit."

Then he closed his eyes and his wand hand began moving in long curving sweeps. Magic rolled off him in palpable waves and his voice was almost lyrical as it chanted a spell. It was like no spell she'd ever heard before, rising in falling in pitch and timbre, her trained ear picking up both Latin and Greek as well as actual parseltongue as the messy haired young man cast.

Before her eyes the hovering image of the bronze arm faded away and liquid bronze poured in thick streams out of the air. Coalescing into dozens of narrow tubes that bunched and coiled before resolving into muscles and bones. It was fascinating to watch, Parvati sort of assumed that he'd just make a solid lump of bronze shaped like an arm, like a statue. But this was far more complex and specific.

Even as she watched the muscles attached themselves to the bones and bronze 'skin' flowed from the collar on her upper arm, connecting all the parts together with a smooth, liquid motion.

The first thing that came to mind as the magic activated the connection between her mind and her new limb was one of bizarre dislocation. She was getting information flowing into her mind that was a little confusing, that different things were touching her new arm at a million different places. But as the bronze skin flowed over the muscles and joined everything together she realized that the individual strands of bronze 'muscle' were conflicting with each other.

Eventually however the arm was complete and she instinctively flexed it, expecting a much heavier extension of her body she was surprised to only feel a strange sense of power and strength emanating from it.

Harry on the other hand looked positively exhausted. He was leaning against Hermione who had an arm wrapped around his shoulders. Umbridge walked forwards from where she'd been hovering in Parvati's peripheral and waved her wand over the new bronze limb. Apparently casting diagnostics because a moment later she smiled warmly and Parvati and nodded with a genuine look.

"Well done Mr Potter. As good as any unspeakable surgeon could achieve if I say so myself. Miss Patil, you should note that this arm is likely several times stronger than your biological body. But you mustn't assume that it makes you a superhero. It's ability to grip and constrict, as well as flex and extend, are greatly enhanced, but it's lifting capability is still mostly restricted to what your legs shoulder and torso can achieve. Do not attempt to exceed those limits or you might find yourself with severe injuries."

Parvati nodded at the serious tone of the unspeakable and the ageless woman strode off, apparently to oversee some other part of the recovery effort. Abruptly, Parvati herself felt extremely tired, Hermione seemed to notice, although Harry appeared to be dozing where he sat.

"The spell will draw power from your magic to control your new arm. It'll be a drain on your reservoir at first, but your body's ability to generate magic should rise to meet the new demand. Hence the acclimation period. I'd recommend practising your fine motor control on inconsequential items like rocks or grass, because at the moment you could probably crush the barrel of your weapon if you gripped it too hard."

She looked fondly down at Harry.

"I'm going to get this one to bed so he can rest, the next few days are going to be rough for him, there are four other Regimentals who need new limbs."

What went unsaid was how many they had lost already from far more serious injuries. As the two walked off, or rather Hermione walked, and Harry stumbled. Padma squeezed her hand, looking a little awed.

"Sleep sis, I'll be here when you wake."

"Promise?"

"Always"

-:-

The leaders of the various squads were in the opps center with Harry and his command structure, debriefing at last after the engagement a week after it ended.

"Where are we standing right now, in regards to morale?"

Grady shrugged, a little despondent after the battle. The Tyranny was fine, repaired easily by Harry and Cranky, but even a week later it still hadn't left his mind that the whole point of having the battle tank was to protect the Regiment, and they'd failed miserably. So many fatalities from one battle.

Fred and George were a little more pragmatic, Fred now sporting a bronze prosthetic from the knee down on his right leg.

"They'll recover, it was hardest for the gnomes who've not had to deal with losses yet. But the vets will recover and help their less experienced squadmates. I'm more worried about the ramifications this will have for the war. We needed those reinforcements to top us up for the coming fights with Valmortis and his magical bloody army. Losing so many has set us back severely and I don't know how we're going to make up for that."

Fred came to a despondent halt as George took up the dialogue.

"Killing daemons is apparently no easy task and it was already looking grim. We're experimenting with alternate anti-daemon shells for the Tyranny but the bulk of the work is still going to be down to the infantry, and we're sorely lacking on manpower."

Harry nodded, looking grim, and gestured to the next person down the line.

"Angelina, how're the vixens holding up?"

She looked a bit rough, she'd made it out of the battle fine, but Alicia hadn't.

"Not, the same Harry. Without Alicia we're feeling pretty lost. Demelza isn't… it's not the same."

She took a shaky breath before continuing

"But overall we're not going anywhere, and I can speak for the rest of the women in the Regiment when I say we don't hold it against the men and boys for what happened. It was out of all of our control."

She reached across the table and patted Grady's hand.

"Thank you Grady, you and the rest of Tyrant squad were the only thing between us and losing that entire flank."

The teenager swallowed heavily and gave a jerky nod. Parvati piped up, her bronze hand poking out from the sleeve of her uniform and gesturing naturally as if she'd been using it her whole life.

"Harry nothing has changed for us, we're still with you. It hit us pretty hard but we'll bounce back. There's some puberty issues to deal with, there's been some tension and angst but the squad leaders are handling it. Ultimately the Regiment has taken a knock, but it'll live. I think I'm with the twins here, we need to be thinking strategically about the rest of the war, we're undergunned and we know it."

Harry frowned, his face twisting around the expression as if it was foreign.

"We sent a note to the MANZACS and the American Mage Corps. We didn't hear back from the Americans, but they have strong ties with France traditionally so we might have lost an ally there. But the MANZAC unit is still en-route, hell they should have been here already."

Mad-Eye piped up with his usual gruff demeanour

"Well you lot need the training in advanced magical combat. Firearms were sufficient for handling the mercenaries and weak Death Eaters who were isolated socially from muggle weapons. The Knights fought in the muggle world war, Miss Bones' and Miss Davis' sniping work aside we won't be able to fight a pitched battle with muggle weapons and expect to make much headway. Because of the nature of Valmortis' strategy we won't be able to implement a guerrilla strategy to counter. As such you have to be able to fight a pitched battle against trained magical soldiers."

Harry looked around the table and saw that the entire group were deep in thought.

"What can we do in the immediate future to prepare?"

Dan, so far mostly silent, spoke up now with a gruff tone.

"You're kids. Not even out of school. We could bridge that gap with firearms when you were fighting terrorists and mercenaries. But you're talking about fighting a war. Pitched battles against trained veterans and magical powerhouses who survived the deadliest war in history. You need backup, plain and simple. I don't think I can convince you or the rest of the Regiment away from this course, but you need help."

Shouting sounded from the gate and Harry's head jerked up, the tone of the shouting was warlike and had a foreign lilt. Dan's eyebrows rose at the language used and Mad Eye cracked a grin.

"Looks like those reinforcements are here lad."

The lot of them moved at pace to the front gates only to find the entire Regiment lined up. Facing the gates with weapons at parade rest. On the other side of the gate a host of thirty men, women conspicuously absent, stood in a rough semi circle. One man stood in the center, nearly eight foot tall and wearing only a thigh length skirt of pleated grass. His entire, heavily muscled, body covered in a rich tapestry of tattoos that glowed an eerie sea-green in the low light of the evening.

That man was bellowing a tribal war cry in a chilling tone that sent shivers down Harry's spine and nearly everyone in the Regiment felt the urge to flee at the sheer power emanating from the muscled warrior. He moved with violent movements in a bizzare war dance, streams of magic flowing through the air around his hands and the ground trembling with every stomp of his feet.

The warlike display ended abruptly with a vicious roar that set the hairs on the back of Harry's neck on end and a prickle of fear down his spine. The magic dimmed from the warrior's tattoos and it became apparent that the man had almost no space on his body where there was bare skin. Beside him, a somewhat shorter man in full military uniform walked forward. The uniform was a long olive green robe, similar in form to a trench coat, with muggle style epaulets, weighed down with a myriad of medals. Under it could be seen a slight glow of the same sea-green. Slung behind one shoulder was a long staff made from a richly coloured wood tipped with a needle-like foot long tip of a richly coloured green stone.

He stopped and clapped an open hand to his opposite shoulder before bowing at the neck.

"Potter Regiment, the troops of the fifth MANZAC corps, here to help."

-:-

*(1)Full credit to Jeconais for this metaphor/simile, taken from his story: Hope.

An3: Quick note, it occured to me while writing this chapter that while I referred to the driver of the Tyranny by first name, I never actually gave his position in the tank or his task. Luke Vitner is the Driver of the Tyranny. Grady Pierce is the Unit Leader and Tank Commander, Tom 'Twitch' Catner is the Gunner and of course Cranky the elf is the general mechanic and loader. Finally the Tank itself is a Centurion Mk7/1

An4: Hi everyone, can't even blame the lack of muse or laziness for the lateness of this chapter, I've just been busy. I don't think I've ever done so much work for such a protracted period of time in my entire life. I'm back in the saddle though, and you'll see some sharp changes with this series. Firstly I've re-written the entire rest of the plot for the next three installments. I've been working with a couple of other authors and my writing should have improved dramatically. Also I'm a bit more mature than I was, so expect less B.S. / waffling and more getting to the point… and the story darkening a tad with a bit more world building thrown in for good measure. Anyway, I'm back, and better than ever, so strap in.

Finally I'm searching for someone willing to go through and beta read my future chapters, and fix the old ones to get rid of the most glaring plot holes, like Padma/Parvati being swapped all the time.

An5: Review responses

Guest reviews: Thank you for the reviews! But I've decided not to reply with detail until you decide to make the effort to review with an account.

Okay folks that's it for another chapter. Tune in next time for Chapter Eight: Disdain. Wherein the Regiment is beset by a foe they've not yet faced, and the Statute of Secrecy comes under direct threat.

As always thanks for Reading and other Shenanigans. See you next time!

LGreymark