Chapter 1
Rebecca sat in the Burrow's kitchen like she did every morning, with her ear tilted towards the radio Arthur had put together enough to catch the Wizarding News.
Arthur spent more hours out in his workshop than not lately, and if he wasn't outside then he was still tinkering with a radio in one form or another--The Order had tasked him with making it so that there was a network for communication between the different safe houses and Arthur took his job seriously.
"These are dark times, there is no denying. Our world has, perhaps, faced no greater threat than it does today. But I say this to our citizenry--we, ever your servants, will continue to defend your liberty and repel the forces that seek to take it from you. Your Ministry remains...strong!" Rufus Scrimgeour, Fudge's replacement as Minister of Magic, spewed his propaganda about the strength of the Ministry and how well they were handling everything despite the growing numbers of Muggle and Muggle-born families alike being murdered every passing week.
Rebecca reached across the counter and slammed the radio into silence, cursing the Ministry, cursing the lies, cursing like a sailor.
"Rebecca!" Molly scolded, surprised at the vocabulary. She had only entered the kitchen for paper. Wedding planning doesn't happen overnight, after all, and it certainly doesn't happen without to-do lists.
"Sorry." Rebecca muttered.
She couldn't help it, she was going stir crazy. Hermione wasn't set to join those already at the Burrow for another week and the shop had been forced to shut down before she had even had the chance to see it again. With the news being the same shite it was every day, Rebecca's mood was stormy; there was a lot to curse.
Molly grabbed the pad of paper she had been searching for and watched as Rebecca retreated up the stairs. Both women knew exactly where she was going to go: Fred's bed.
Each of the four planning on hunting the horcruxes was making their goodbyes their own way and for Rebecca, that meant she and Fred spending any moment they could with one another.
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One week later, Hermione would make her first--but not the last--goodbye. She stood in her bedroom and looked over the pictures she had hung up, her books on her shelves, the bag she had packed on her bed. All of it made up her, her belongings. All of it would have to be left behind.
"Hermione! Tea's ready, darling!" Her mother's voice carried through their rowhouse as it had countless times before. Neither her mum nor her dad knew that this day was any different than the others.
Hermione shouldered her bag and stuck the last of collection of things she wanted to bring with her on top. Down the stairs, not 'her stairs' for much longer. Hermione's grip tightened on her wand as she faced the back of her parents.
"Obliviate."
Just like that, Hermione took the memories of herself from her parents and locked them away. If she made it out of this alive, if the world could be returned to how it was, then the memories would be returned. If the world ended or...Hermione refused to put the very real possibility of her own death off the table, her parents would not spend their lives mourning.
"Mercy." Hermione told herself as she stepped out of her house for the last time. "This was mercy."
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"Hurry up, Dudley!" Vernon shouted in the house as Dudley puttered around the doorway. They were racing to fill the car, not willing to spend even one more day in the same house as Harry. Who knew how much faster they would have been going if Rebecca had returned to Privet Drive with him.
"I don't understand why we have to leave!" Dudley shouted back with a large, bulky bag over his head like it was empty. Dudley had tapered out immensely--he had discovered a fondness for long distance running that year at Smeltings and it had given him an outlet for emotions and thoughts he had never worked through before. And, the most obvious, it had him in the best shape he had ever been in.
"Because it's not safe for us anymore!" Vernon's tone made it clear that he would take any more questions on the subject.
"He's not coming with us." Dudley pointed back to the house. "How dangerous can it be?"
Petunia's eyes turnt towards her feet. "You have no idea." Neither son or husband heard her speak.
Harry turned back from his window to where Rebecca sat on his desk chair chatting to Hedwig. "I don't even know why you want to say goodbye." Harry repeated what he had asking all morning. "They don't even-"
"Like me?" Rebecca finished with a rueful smile. "I know, I know. But they're the only blood relatives we'll ever have and, at the very least." Any sadness left her face and was replaced with cheek. "It'll terrify them to know that I've been up here all day."
Harry chuckled and put his hands behind his head as he lie on the bottom bunk he stayed in even though Rebecca had never stayed another summer with him. "Don't know why I have to stay here any longer."
"Yes, you do." Rebecca, just as Vernon didn't want to hear more from Dudley, didn't want to hear more griping from Harry. "I'm going to run downstairs, I'm starved. Think they've left anything?"
Harry watched her go before shaking his head and following after her a minute later. He could eat.
Harry stopped at the bottom of the stairs, confused as to why Rebecca stood in the doorway to the unfurnished living room. Then, he heard Petunia's voice.
"I have lived in this house for twenty years. And now," Petunia was solemn, but not angry. "Now I'm expected to leave."
"You can stay." Rebecca crossed her arms and leaned against the door jam. "They'll torture you if they think for even a moment that you might know where we're going, but you could stay."
"Do you think I don't know what they're capable of? You two didn't just lose a mother that night in Godric's Hollow, you know. I lost a sister." Petunia scrounged around in her purse and pulled out an envelope that was sealed tightly. Harry stepped forward, into Petunia's sight. "You both find us when you're done. You find us and we'll talk. I-"
Rebecca held the envelope shocked. "But-"
"And bring that boy." Petunia shook her head and looked at Rebecca with a far away thought in her eyes. "Something about Potters and red hair." She filed out of the house, nodding her head to Harry in the hallway before going out to the packed-to-the-brim car.
"What was that?" Harry whispered.
Rebecca tucked the envelope into her back pocket. "I have no idea."
Dudley looked up as two sets of footsteps made their way to the curb. Dudley did something strange when he saw Rebecca, something that she and Harry would never have time to talk about. Dudley smiled. "So they are coming with us?"
"They?" Vernon asked, his back still to the house and blissfully unaware at the surprise appearance of his favourite niece.
"Harry and Rebec-"
"What?!" Vernon hissed and whirled around as if something had stung him. "What are you doing here?"
Rebecca offered him a small wave. "Surprise?"
Vernon muttered darkly and returned to situating his seat. "They are not coming with us."
Dudley stood where he had been on the far side of the car, refusing to get in.
"It's alright, really." Harry let out a little, dark chuckle. "I'm just a waste of space, aren't I, Vernon?"
"Let's go, Dudley." Vernon glowered at the comment, but didn't respond.
Dudley slammed his door shut and walked back up to the house, staring up at it and finding his head filled with memories and regret. "I was a right little prick, wasn't I?" Dudley spoke softly after a moment.
Harry nodded. "Yeah, just a bit."
"Oh, I won't lie. I hardly knew you and you were a terror." Rebecca spoke honestly, still finding a trace of a smile on Dudley's face when he looked at her.
"Then you'll come back when you're done...whatever it is you two are doing. You'll come back so that I can prove I'm not anymore." Dudley held his hand out to Rebecca and looked at her in all seriousness. "Both of you. I still owe you for saving me in the tunnel."
Rebecca grabbed Dudley's hand and shook it.
Dudley then met Harry's eyes. "And I don't think you're a waste of space."
Harry wasn't sure what to say, so he said what he thought Rebecca would have. "Thanks."
Dudley walked back to the car after that, looking over his shoulder at the left-behind Potters with concern.
"See ya, Big D." Harry said to himself. Rebecca reached up and wrapped her arm through his so that he knew she was there for him, that he wasn't alone.
Vernon couldn't fight the grin off his face in the driver's seat as the Dursleys pulled away from Number 4. "This isn't just goodbye to those nightmares, is it? No, it's farewell!"
A single tear escaped Petunia's eye and she let it fall without shame.
Rebecca looked around the empty house once they were back inside and turned to Harry. "You sure you'll be alright on your own for a few hours? I can stay-"
"Go!" Harry pulled her into a tight hug. "The wedding is tomorrow. We're going to be busy and you should...spend you time as you will."
"Yeah, I get it." Rebecca blushed as she stepped out of his hug. "I'll tell Fred you said hi."
"Did I?" Harry teased as she looked around for her wand. He held it up from where he had picked it up upstairs and dangled it in front of her. "You're not coming tonight, are you?"
"Are you really asking me that?" Rebecca winked at him. "See you in a few hours."
"You're not supposed to do magic yet!" Harry called worried.
"What're they going to do?" Rebecca raised an eyebrow. "Expel me?" She apparated back to the Burrow without another second to waste.
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Malfoy Manor was under a constant cacophony of screams. They haunted Draco. They seeped into his bedroom and lingered in his head long after they had ended. It was always worse when Draco knew who was being tortured, like that night's victim.
Professor Burbage, the Muggle Studies Professor, had been screaming off and on all day.
There was a harsh pounding on his door before it was thrown open with a force wholly unnecessary. Bellatrix stormed in and grabbed Draco roughly by the back of his neck. "Come, little Draco. It's time for dinner."
Bellatrix's grip on Draco only ended when he was thrown into his seat. Voldemort, sat at the head of the table, regarded the boy with nothing but disdain. Severus' arrival brought his attention away from failure.
"I was beginning to think you had lost your way." Voldemort said. "Come, we've saved you a seat." Up and down the table, there were more than fifteen Death Eaters on either side. A spot near Voldemort's end of the table had been set aside for Snape. "You bring news, I trust."
"It will happen Saturday next, at nightfall." Severus said, his tone grave.
Yaxley, a Death Eater with a penchant for the finer arts of torture, spoke against Snape's 'news.' "I've heard differently, my lord. An auror let slip that they've moved plans to tonight, the night before the Potter boy and girl turn seventeen."
Snape spoke loudly, exerting his higher rank. "This is a false trail. The auror office no longer plays any part in the protection of the Potter twins. Those who are closest to them believe we have infiltrated the Ministry."
Fenrir barked in laughter in a seat nearer to Draco. "They got that right, haven't they?"
The table was littered with cruel laughter.
"Where will the boy be taken?" Voldemort didn't laugh. He hadn't. "To the Muggle-loving slum with the girl?"
Snape answered. "To a safe house, most likely the home of someone in the Order. I'm told it has been given every manner of protection possible. Once there, it will be impractical to attack them."
Bellatrix cleared her throat and raised a hand daintily, as if that hand hadn't singlehandedly killed grown men twice her size. "My lord, I'd like to volunteer myself for this task. I want to kill the girl for-"
Another scream echoed through the house, interrupting their plans. Voldemort's head shot to the servant at the doorway. "WORMTAIL!" Peter Pettigrew scurried forward. "Have I not spoken to you about keeping our guest quiet?"
"Y-yes, my lord. Right away!" Peter ran off towards the dungeons.
Voldemort returned his attention to Bellatrix. "As inspiring as I find your bloodlust, Bellatrix, the girl is not to be killed. Not yet."
"My lord?" Bellatrix breathed.
"I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, but the girl could prove yet more useful alive." Bellatrix bowed her head, avoiding Voldemort's gaze as he stood and began to circle around the table. Voldemort addressed his guests. "I face an unfortunate complication. My wand and the boy's share the same core. They are, in some ways, twins."
The irony was not lost on Draco, but he found no humour in it.
"We can wound, but not fatally harm, one another. If I am to kill him, I must do it with another's wand." Voldemort turned towards the Malfoys and Draco's heart climbed into his throat.
"Please, please don't let it be my wand. Don't let another death be my fault." Draco pleaded.
"Surely one of you would like the honour?" Voldemort stopped behind Lucius. "What about you, Lucius?"
"My lord?" Lucius whimpered.
Voldemort sneered and mocked his tone. "My lord?' I require your wand." Voldemort's hand reached out, it's open palm in front of Lucius' face. Lucius unsheathed his wand from his cane and handed it over with shaking hands. He watched the transferring of his wand in horror. "Do I detect elm?" Voldemort asked.
"Yes, my lord."
Voldemort held the decorative snake's end in one hand and the bulk of the wand in the other. A snap echoed out through the dining hall as he snapped such ornamentality off. "And the core?"
Lucius felt nauseous at seeing his wand defiled as it was, but answered all the same. "Dr-dragon heartstring, my lord."
Voldemort threw the snake figure onto the table and held the wand out in front of him as he made his way back to his seat. "To those unaware, we are joined tonight by Charity Burbage. Miss Burbage, until recently, taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, her specialty being Muggle Studies."
Titters of laughter rose from the table as the prisoner who had just finished her latest batch of torture was brought into the dining room, suspended over the table while her body was paralyzed.
"It is Miss Burbage's belief that Muggles...are not so different from us." The laughter silenced at the hard tone that crept into Voldemort's voice "She would, given her way, have us mate with them."
Boos and cries of disgust rose into a clamour.
"To her," Voldemort continued. "The mixture of Magic and Muggle blood is not an abomination, but something to be encouraged."
Charity reached the halfway point of the table and Snape came into view. "S-Severus!" She gasped. "Please..." Charity's body hurt in a way that could never be remedied, in a way that told her that even if the aurors weren't corrupt, she couldn't be saved. Not any more. She begged for mercy. "We're friends-"
Voldemort raised his new wand and flourished it comfortably, testing its limits. "Avada kedavra!"
Draco's heart pounded and his vision darkened around its edges as his ex-professor fell to the table, dead. Tears still crept down her face and collected onto the table.
Voldemort raised his hand to pet the snake that never seemed to leave his side. "Nagini, dinner."
Draco closed his eyes as the crunching of bones filled the room and every space inside of him. The screams would have a rival that night in his head.
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Fred tied his shoes in he and Rebecca's bedroom without looking at the laces so he could watch Rebecca button up her shirt. They may not have made well on their plans for 'the summer,' never having enough privacy or time to do so, but they had managed to sneak in heavy-enough snogging that they were satiated for intimacy.
"You're staring again." Rebecca warned.
"I can't help it." Fred whinged. He stood and wrapped his arms around her from behind and let his hands rest on her hips. "You demand my full attention, always." Fred lowered his lips to the crook of her neck and held them there despite the fact that Rebecca ignored his romance.
"It's time to go. The Order waits for no one." Rebecca left the top most button undone and turned so that she faced Fred's chest. She patted his stomach so that he would let go of her and offered him a quick peck on the cheek.
"Alright." Fred sighed and wrapped her in a hug before letting her escape his arms.
Fred and George's old room had become George and Cedric's after Cedric defected from his family. He refused to hide in America as the ultimatum they had laid out demanded, refusing to leave George and the Order. Then, the attic was cleared out for Fred and Rebecca. Ginny was slightly relieved at Hermione's arrival days earlier as she found that having a roommate wasn't as horrible as not having one.
"I love you." Fred murmured, kissing the top of her head.
Rebecca caught her hand in his as they walked down the stairs. "I love you, too."
Back in Surrey, Harry was shoving the last of the things he thought could be necessary on their coming search with Hedwig's happy hoots and chirps in the background. She seemed to be able to sense that things were going to change soon and it filled the owl with excitement.
Harry glanced at the newspaper with Dumbledore's obituary and considered it before stuffing it into his backpack with the rest. All that was left was bringing Hedwig's cage downstairs with his bag in the emptied living room.
In the emptiness, Harry turned back and went for one last look at his childhood: the cupboard under the stairs.
It swung open with a familiar squeak and Harry pulled the chain so that the light hanging from the slanted ceiling flickered on. He stared at the toys on the little shelf and was glad for a moment that Rebecca wasn't there so that he could cry freely as he picked up the little horse he had spent hours pretending would storm the house and take him far away.
Harry cried for the loss of his innocence, he cried because part of him wished that he was still only the hungry little boy whose family hated him, he wished that he could have had a regular life.
And then Harry wiped his face and put the toy down. His grieving was over for the moment. Just as Rebecca had told him weeks earlier, before they had planned the trip they were embarking on shortly, if anything had changed about their youths, they might not have found each other.
Harry wouldn't risk that for anything. He had a sister now, he had a family now. Sirius and Remus played massive roles in that, but when Harry thought of the word family, Rebecca was at the front of it all.
The sound of a motorcycle's engine cutting outside pulled Harry away from his sadness and he stood up from the carpeted floor to make his way to the front door, which he opened with his wand out.
"Would you get put that down and let us in?" Rebecca whacked his arm and piled in ahead of Hagrid and Ron.
"It's good to see you, Harry!" Hagrid boomed.
Hermione wedged her way through the doorway and hugged Harry as soon as Ron had let go of him. "How are you?"
"Why don't we get a move on inside before someone murders the two of 'em?" Mad-Eye Moody grumbled as he tried to herd the crowd that had formed on the front step further into the house.
"Evening, professor." Harry greeted the auror as he passed, despite the fact that he had never actually acted as their professor.
Arthur trailed behind the last of those entering and greeted Harry warmly. The emptied living room that had housed Petunia's strange goodbye only hours earlier now held a collection of friends, Order members, and protectors.
"Kingsley!" Harry looked up at the man confused. "I thought you were looking after the Prime Minister."
"No, Harry." Kingsley may have smiled, but his tone was entirely serious. "You two are more important."
Bill and Fleur were the next to stop in front of Harry. Bill had found that certain aspects of his mannerisms had to change after the Fenrir attack as the scars that he had been left with made people wary despite it being impossible for him to transmit lycanthropy. As a result, he held his hand out for a shake in case Harry would have any reservations.
Harry ignored it entirely and wrapped his arms around the eldest Weasley.
Fred and George slunk around the corner from wherever they had appeared from with Cedric between them. Seeing Harry near Bill, Fred gave Rebecca a wink and raised his voice over the din of conversation. "Careful Harry, you'll catch the ugly off him."
Rebecca laughed. It had been a running joke between Fred and Bill about his new appearance, and Bill usually countered with how he had been trying to find a way to look more strange than having a double. Bill appreciated Fred's antics; the fact that everyone else seemed to tiptoe around his scars irritated him more than anything.
Fleur whirled on Fred with a scowl that only softened when she looked back up at Bill. She lay a hand against his cheek. "You are still 'andsome to me, William."
"At least someone else likes their steaks on the rawside now, right Bill?" Remus clapped a hand to Bill's shoulder and brought him to the back of the room where the others with their task waited for Mad-Eye to bring the room to attention. But, before he could get too far, Harry and Rebecca enveloped Remus into a Molly-like tight hug that only lessened when Sirius began to whinge that it was his turn.
Mad-Eye had gone to close the door when Sirius' shout after Tonks pulled his hair echoed through the cul-de-sac, but paced at the front of the room as soon as he returned. "There'll be time for a cozy catch up later! We've got to get the hell out of here...and soon!"
Kingsley and Arthur went from window to window and charmed them to not be able to be seen through.
"You two," Mad-Eye turned his attention onto Harry and Rebecca. "Underage. You've still got the trace."
"The trace?" Rebecca echoed.
"If you sneeze, the Ministry will know who wipes your nose."
Rebecca grimaced. "So, say one was to have apparated...twice..."
Mad-Eye glared at her and his blue eye whirred it spun so quickly. Mad-Eye continued with what he had to say before he ended up strangling one half of the very duo they were trying to keep alive. "We will be using means of transport the trace can't detect. Brooms, thestrals, the like. We're going in trios." Mad-Eye surveyed the room gravely. "If anyone's out there waiting for us--and I reckon there will be--they won't know which twin is the real one."
This would be the part of the plan that had been kept from Harry and Rebecca.
"The real one?" Harry asked.
"I believe you're familiar with this particular brew?" Mad-Eye sloshed his flask towards the Potter twins.
"Absolutely not!" Rebecca leaned forward and flipped the lid to the flask back shut. "Not a chance, not one in hell."
"I told you they'd take it well." Cedric warned, leaning behind George to hide his chuckles.
"It's been decided, Rebecca." Fred stepped forward. "It's the best way to move you two safely."
"At what risk?" Rebecca turned around, looking at all the people who were offering to become them, to hide them this way. "How can we let you risk your lives for us-"
"Like we haven't before?" Ron crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.
"This is entirely different!" Harry argued. "Taking that, becoming us. No!"
"None of us really fancy it." George added. "Imagine something goes wrong and Ginny tears our clothes off with her eyes for eternity." He shuddered.
"Everyone here is of age already." Mad-Eye said definitively, ending the discussion. "They've all agreed to the risk." He nodded to Hermione and Ron, "As discussed."
Ron yanked the top of Harry's while Hermione did Rebecca.
"Blimey, Ron!" Harry cried out.
"Fuck!" Rebecca ducked in case Hermione went for more. "A warning would have been nice!"
Hermione dropped the hairs that she had collected into the flask that Mad-Eye had in one hand and Ron dropped those that he had collected into the other. The potions fizzed audibly and those around the room formed two groups.
Mad-Eye, now walking around the room, looked over them all. "For those of you who haven't taken Polyjuice before, fair warning: it tastes like goblin piss." Mad-Eye stopped in front of Fred and George and handed them each one of the flasks at random.
"Do you have a lot of experience with that, do you, Mad-Eye?" George tapped his flask to Fred's and smiled as Mad-Eye stared at him with murder in his eyes. "Just trying to diffuse the tension."
Cedric had hardly put the flask to his lips when the effects started to take over Fred and George. The first thing that happened to them both was, that who had once been Fred, dropped in height noticeably more than George.
Rebecca buried her face in her hands and only looked up when Fred and George cackled loudly.
"Wow!" They high-fived each other. "We're identical!"
Where Fred had been was now a copy of Rebecca, a copy that gave her the very half-grin she loved to see on him and found strange coming from her face.
"Not yet, you're not." Kingsley dumped out the bags he had brought while Mad-Eye administered the last of the potions. "You two, too."
George, now Harry, lifted up one of the shirts between two fingers. "You haven't got anything sportier? Jumpers aren't really my thing."
"They're not mine, either." Harry grumbled as the room began stripping down and digging through the piles of clothes. "That's hers."
"Give it." Fred snatched it from George's hands, ignoring how Cedric--now a Rebecca--had to swap for one as well. Fred pulled off the jumper he had been wearing before and froze in the middle of the room while the others continued to change around him.
"Fred!" Rebecca hissed, her face burning in embarrassment. Fred kept the hand he had on his chest--now an exact copy of hers--but had the decency to blush. "Keep your hands-thank you!" It took another second, but he eventually lowered his hand.
Sirius and Remus turned their backs to the collection of people to snicker to the wall as they saw Fred's scolding. Kept at the back of the room were those who would not be transforming, the godfathers, Tonks, Kingsley, Hagrid, Bill, and Mad-Eye.
Despite the fact that the shirt he had been wearing under his own jumper was far too big for his new body, he pulled Rebecca's on over it and didn't meet Rebecca's eyes. "Right, sorry."
Rebecca unbuttoned her shirt and tossed it into the discard pile. Fred gawked and spun in a slow circle around the room, too many instances of Rebecca's skin showing to blink.
Fleur's bra hung off of the Harry she had turned into loosely and, as she slipped it off, she kept her back to Bill who couldn't stop laughing. "Don't look at me! I am hideous!"
"Ouch." Rebecca threw one of Harry's shirts at Fleur. "Hurtful much?"
Harry shrugged and stood next to Rebecca, already changed and far too amused to have hurt feelings. "It's alright. We can't all cause effects like-"
"Not another word, Harry." Rebecca interrupted whatever it was he wanted to say and grabbed Fred's hand. It was almost frightening to know that he was who she was holding onto, but their hands did not fit together as they were supposed to.
Fred scrunched his eyebrows, staring at the original Rebecca with a contemplative look he would have recognised if she had been doing school work or working on a particularly difficult prank. "If I kiss you, is it mast-"
"That will do!" Remus clapped his hands and turned around, doing his best to ignore the fact that Fred was back to staring down at his chest. "Glasses, make sure you have glasses!"
Sirius walked around the room with two basketfuls, one black rimmed circles and one unrimmed circles.
Hermione, also a Rebecca pair, slid on the correct set and gasped at how much cleared the world was. "Your eyesight really is terrible!"
"I don't wear them because I like them." Rebecca deadpanned.
One of the Harry's snorted, but she couldn't tell if it was George or Ron.
"Alright!" Mad-Eye looked over the room of Rebecca-s and Harry-s. "We'll be partnering off now. A Harry and Rebecca to each group." He warned Mundungus Fletcher to stay at his side. "As for Harry and Rebecca-"
"Yes?" The room answered.
Mad-Eye took a breath to calm himself. "The real Rebecca and Harry, where the devil are you?"
Harry raised his hand from the back of the room where he had gravitated towards Sirius and Rebecca raised her hand from next to copies of herself. One she was fairly certain was Hermione, based on her posture and inability to stop adjusting the glasses she was unused to wearing. The other, Rebecca was more certain, was Fred. She knew this because of his inability to stop staring at the other Rebecca-s around the room.
"You'll both ride with Hagrid, in the side car." Mad-Eye scowled as Harry went to question the logistics. "A tight fit, but doable."
"Tight fit?" Ron echoed hollowly. "I haven't been this short since fourth year!" The real Harry stared at Ron until he apologised. "Sorry, mate."
Hagrid stepped forward and straightened Harry's collar. "I brought you here sixteen years ago. Seems fitting I'm the one to take you away. As for you," Hagrid turned to Rebecca and grew frighteningly close to tears. "I get to make it up to you."
"It's all very touching!" Mad-Eye bellowed, shooing them out of the house. "Let's go!"
Harry stepped out of Number 4 Privet Drive for the last time he ever would as a child with Hedwig on his shoulder. The real Rebecca stayed by his side as the others filed up and down the rows of transports. Hedwig began to shuffle on Harry's shoulder and, before she could fly above their gathering, Rebecca leaned over and left a kiss on her snow-white head.
Mad-Eye was right about the sidecar being a tight fit. Harry took the seat--his legs were longer--and Rebecca managed to wedge herself in at his feet. His arms went around her middle like the seatbelt she wasn't wearing, but she could lean forward enough to see the line of brooms and thestrals with images of themselves aboard. One Rebecca, hinting towards who they truly were, winked at the real Rebecca as Hagrid kicked the motorcycle to life.
Racing down the street, Rebecca couldn't help but grin and continue doing so as the motorcycle lifted off the ground and entered a steep climb. The cold wind whipping past them left reminded her of a number of quidditch matches, and it wasn't too-too cold with Harry so close. Plus, Rebecca felt a certain level of satisfaction at knowing that the copies of herself were in jumpers.
Mad-Eye rode his broom past them, a broom type that Rebecca had never seen before. She leaned over to look at it more closely and Harry tightened his hold on her. For someone who had seen her fly so many years, the height they were still climbing to filled his stomach with worry. All the same, Rebecca could see that the broom had been modified so that Mad-Eye's missing leg didn't alter his flight path or keep him from steering.
When they broke through the cloud-layer, Harry's grip only tightened another degree. Lightning streaked the sky in front of them and, as the thunder shook their bones, they could see that everyone had entered a battlefield. Death Eaters were tearing through the sky on brooms of their own, sending curses and hexes at anything that moved--including themselves.
Their shouts of confusion filled the air.
"He's on your right!"
"No, that's the girl! He's right there!"
Hagrid steered them along the edge of the battle, not offering the others any aid.
"We have to turn back and held them!" Harry shouted over the wind.
Rebecca already had her wand in hand and was trying to do whatever she could before the distance between them and the bulk of the fighting grew too great to cross.
"Can't do that." Hagrid looked down as the blue light on the center console of the bike illuminated. "Mad-Eye's orders!" He hit the button and fire shot out the back of the motorbike, propelling them on even faster. The fire, however, attracted attention.
Three Death Eaters pulled away from their fellows and followed close behind the bike, landing spells dangerously close. Hagrid glanced over his shoulder at their proximity and steered them lower and lower until they roughly landed onto a motorway. The Death Eaters continued to try and hit them with curses, but now they had to weave and dodge taller cars.
Harry shoved Rebecca down; a curse whizzed over her head with inches to spare. He turned back as best he could in his seat. "Stupefy!" Harry managed to land his attack and the Death Eater hit the ground rolling, taking out the back tire to a lorry that turned over and blocked the path of the motorcycle entirely.
Hagrid wrenched the handlebar to the side and brought them veering across oncoming traffic and then into a tunnel.
Two buses formed a wall up ahead with no room on either side for the bike to get through. Hagrid lifted one of his large feet off the pegs and shouted. "Hold on!" Holding his foot on the ground, a shower of sparks rained behind them from where the metal of the bike's undercarriage scraped against the top of the tunnel as Harry, Rebecca, and Hagrid momentarily went upside down.
Harry, wedged into place only by Rebecca, realised that if she wasn't there he would have fallen or dangled freely--a target to the Death Eaters still chasing after them. Then, as if they had read his thoughts, one of them managed to hit Hagrid with whatever they had been sending the moment Hagrid had the bike in its proper orientation.
"Hagrid?" Rebecca tried to yell over the wind and the echoing of the cars. He didn't respond. Rebecca pried herself out from underneath the sidecar's windscreen and could feel where the metal lip had bruised her back. She swung a leg over the middle and grabbed the handlebars inside of Hagrid's.
Rebecca had never driven a motorcycle. She had never even driven a car. But as the headlights of oncoming traffic grew brighter and the horns of the cars around them grew louder, Rebecca pulled up with all the strength she could manage and found that the motorcycle responded as she needed it to. They were back on course up to the sky.
The Death Eater still in pursuit followed close behind them and abandoned the constant spell casting to lean farther onto their broomstick in an attempt to lessen the distance between them. Harry was trying to hit their pursuer with something that would end the chase, but the Death Eater blocked or dodged his every attempt.
A shrill cry echoed through the air and a white blur flew past the motorcycle. Rebecca felt something inside of her begin to hum, to try and tell her something. Harry watched Hedwig's defending them in horror.
Their owl took out one of the Death Eater's eyes first. When that didn't end the danger her children were in, Hedwig circled back to attack again and took the other. Hedwig flew back to the loud bike to fly near Harry's shoulder until they got wherever they were going.
The Death Eater, now entirely blind, sent one last curse in the direction the Potter twins had been last, the killing curse.
The flash of green struck Hedwig and sent her spiralling through the air towards the ground below.
Rebecca knew what the green meant, and she knew that she could fix this. She leaned forward to direct the motorcycle to the ground.
"We can't." Harry grabbed Rebecca's wrist with tears already in his eyes. "If we stop, they'll find us." His grief welled up inside of him, filling anywhere it could. "If we stop, she died for nothing."
Rebecca lifted the motorcycle back up without a word moments later, though it killed something inside of her to do so. Their mourning was only given minutes before the battle was beside them once more.
A familiar face appeared at the head of the shadowy apparation trail of the Death Eaters beside them, Voldemort's face. Harry stood in the sidecar and cast a spell to catch the trajectory of the one Voldemort had sent towards Rebecca's head.
The stream of their magic met in the middle between them, between the motorcycle and the spectre. Red clashed with green and sent sparks off in all directions.
Rebecca took her wand out and added to Harry's power. The lost of Hedwig fueled them both. Grief gave their spells the edge needed to push the epicenter all the way to Voldemort's wand, which shattered in his hand.
The blue button Hagrid had hit earlier illuminated again and Rebecca hit it the second their spells were severed. Voldemort screamed into the night and sent out a shockwave of magic that tore the powerlines down in a shower of arcing electricity, but Harry and Rebecca were speeding off into the distance before it had any chance of harming them.
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Author's Note:
Cliffhanger again?
<3