Chapter 4
Chapter 4: Superman-
I wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
'Bout a home I'll never see
It may sound absurd but don't be naïve
Even heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed but won’t you concede
Even heroes have the right to dream
And it's not easy to be me
Superman- Five for Fighting
“Congratulations, Harry! You did it! I don’t know how but Lucius managed to get the warrant for your arrest appealed!” Hermione shouted, rushing into Harry’s current office where she was looking over the most recent supply line reports Luna, Neville, and Andromeda had drawn up.
“What?” Harry questioned looking up from her report shocked; she hadn’t expected results on that front for months.
“You know what this means, right?”
“What?” Harry humored the excited brunette.
“It means you can enter the ministry now without having to worry about a direct attack! This could change everything. As the Potter head and Black heir you hold quite a bit of power in the Wizengamot and being the girl-who-lived still carries quite a bit of weight, even if most won’t admit it openly. It helps that you are the face of the resistance and responsible for every gain we have made in this war, particularly after our predecessors practically screwed us over,” she finally paused to breathe, and Harry smiled.
“That’s great! This will allow us to push our agenda forward much earlier than expected. However,” she grimaced, “it also means I haven’t prepared for actively playing politics yet. I hate to ask, but—”
Hermione interrupted with a scoff, “Of course I will help you prepare. I already have a basic information packet prepared for you; because I know for all you claim that I’m overworked you spread yourself just as thin, if not thinner. It has the who’s who, the basic rules and etiquette, and an overview of the laws we are most concerned with at the moment. I’ll have a more comprehensive packet ready by the end of the week.”
“Hermione, I don’t say this often enough, but you are amazing.”
“Nonsense. I’m just doing my job. Besides,” she added with a grin, “what are friends for?”
They sat in silence for a few moments as Harry skimmed through the packet Hermione handed her, and Hermione set about trying to bring some order to Harry’s desk.
“Umm… Myst,” Hermione hesitantly started.
“Uh-oh must be important if you’re bringing out the Marauder names. What’s up?”
“I—I just, you work so hard and we appreciate it we do—but even you need to take a break sometimes and I know you haven’t really had a chance to relax since Petunia, and I-I,”
“Swift, you’re rambling,” Harry interrupted, feeling a pang at the mention of Petunia but pushing it aside for now.
Hermione took a moment to gather herself, and started again, “Myst you need to take a break. I am throwing a small get-together at my current safe house, and I want you to come. Luna is of course invited as well,” she stated firmly.
Harry shook her head, “Of course I’ll come, Mione. I can always find time for friends, but is it safe to have people at your safe-house? If the Death Eaters got that information you know what would happen.”
Hermione shrugged, “I’m planning to relocate soon anyways so I figure I’ll be fine for the time being. Besides, I’m only inviting those I trust absolutely.”
Harry swallowed her misgivings, “Alright, but I’d prefer if you relocated sooner rather than later. Luna left on a diplomatic mission a few hours ago, so she unfortunately won’t be able make it. How should I arrive, and when?”
“Apparition would probably be easiest, the back door opens to a relatively secluded alleyway. If you’ll give me a moment, I’ll lower my shields for you.”
Harry nodded, waving her hand to close the door and activate the stronger set of wards on her office. She then made eye-contact and gently eased her way into Hermione’s mind just far enough to pick up the coordinates and then retreated.
“As for time, any time after 6 will be fine. If you could also manage to smuggle us some hangover potions, that would be great,” she added.
“After six and bring hangover potions. Got it.”
It was nearing two in the morning and Harry and Hermione were the last two awake, laying together on Hermione’s bed—Ron having passed out on the couch about an hour and a half ago. Harry’s head was on Hermione’s stomach and Hermione was idly running her hands through Harry’s short hair.
“Do you ever wonder about what you’ll do? After I mean?” Hermione asked, surprisingly lucid for the amount of alcohol they had consumed.
Harry thought about platinum blonde hair and wide blue eyes, and answered, “Sometimes,” in a whisper, as if it was forbidden. “I don’t think I could stay here,” she confessed a few moments later, “but I would if…” she trailed off again, not daring to voice her dreams out loud.
“You’d stay for her,” Hermione observed. “I- I can’t see Ron ever wanting to leave, but sometimes, sometimes I just want to run. Run and run until I don’t see blood and death in every rock and stone. I-I just, I just want to forget sometimes, want to leave it all behind. What do we owe this world? Really? They dragged us in and then told us to fight their wars without help, expected us to fix all their mistakes. I’m-I’m scared if we stay that we’ll never be free. After this—if we win—after everything we’ve done… You saw how they treated Moody… they’ll wrap us up in laws and registrations so tightly that we’ll never have any freedom again. They’ll put us wherever they want us and, and—I-I can’t live like that Harry, I can’t.”
She seemed to be on the edge of tears.
“Me too,” Hadrea slowly, haltingly gave voice to what she hadn’t dared to admit even to herself.
Hermione suddenly sat up, eyes bright, pulling Harry with her, “Hadrea, promise me. Promise me that you won’t let them trap you. That if you get out alive that you’ll run and run and never look back. We’ll go together, and-and, somehow we can convince the others.”
Harry was startled by her sudden fervor. “Hermione…”
“No. Promise me. No matter what happens that if you survive you get out, get away. Don’t let them make you a puppet figurehead. Don’t let them put out your fire. Please,” she insisted.
Hadrea slowly nodded, “Alright. We’ll win their war and then we’ll pack up and go. All of us. They can fix their problems on their own. We’ll run to the edge of the earth, see everything there is to see. We’ll live like nomads,” she ended laughing.
“And we can make Ron and Neville our pack mules, and Fred and George will take care of anyone who bothers us, and if they aren’t enough Draco can just order them away,” Hermione added.
“And Luna can discover all sorts of weird animals, and Sirius can catch us dinner, and we’ll just sit and supervise of course. We do all the work now, so it’s only fair that they take their turn.”
“And Remus can document everything we do and Severus can scare all the wildlife away with his scowl.”
They both burst into giggles at the idea of Severus glaring little bunnies into submission, before calming down and beginning to doze off.
Right before she fell asleep, Hadrea heard Hermione whisper, “Thank-you.”
It had been five days since anyone had heard anything about Hermione, and the Generals’ council was convening to exchange notes on what they’d found and to decide what to do.
“Alright. We all know why we are here. General Granger is missing. Captain Lupin is representing the Sages in this council. Vice-Commander Longbottom, if you would start us off,” Hadrea ordered after the last representatives walked through the door, waving a hand to close the door and activate the wards on the room.
There were 19 Generals in all, not counting the missing Sage General, and many of them had brought along their Captains as well if they were free.
Commander Potter was at the head of the table with Vice-Commander Longbottom on her right-hand side. Captain Lupin was seated to her left, as it was his department that was most affected, and with General Granger missing, he was currently acting General.
Vice-Commander Longbottom stood. “What we know now is this. General Granger was last seen five days ago when she stopped by General R. Weasley’s office after delivering some papers to Commander Potter. General Weasley, if you would?”
Ron was pale, but shakily stood. The Tactical General’s voice was steady in contrast to his appearance when he spoke, “Hermi—General Granger came by my office late in the evening. She said she had had a packet to deliver to Commander Potter, and figured she would stop by my office before she left to set up a later meeting,” that that meeting was a date went unsaid, but was acknowledged all the same, “She then told me she planned to go to her safe house to finish preparing for her relocation. That was the last time I saw her. I realized something was wrong when she did not show up at the location we’d planned to meet at and sent out the alert.” Finished, he slumped back into his seat, Captain Krum putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
At this point the Warding General stood without prompting. “Upon receiving the alert we ran a check on the wards and security tapes and found nothing amiss,” Bill started, “Following protocol, we then went to General Bones to receive permission to locate and investigate her safe-house. Upon arrival it was obvious that there had been a struggle, as the door was in shards and furniture knocked over. As we investigated, we discovered that her ward scheme had been forcefully dismantled, presumably by a powerful ward-breaker. Captain Creevy, if you would present your findings,” he said, turning to the Captain of Security, who nodded before standing and continuing the report.
“In order to attempt to better determine what had occurred my team first attempted to access General Granger’s personal security system, unfortunately the Death-Eaters seem to be learning as the system was completely fried. We then attempted to find local security cameras, but General Granger was thorough, and the only camera we managed to find gave us a blurry view of her front door. We were able to determine that there were at least four attackers, though more may have gone through the back. We were unable to identify them however, for they were wearing the standard mask and robes.”
Finished he sat down as Vice-Commander Longbottom stood once more, “The situation was then brought to my attention as the victim was a member of this council. I appointed Captain Lupin as acting General for the duration of General Granger’s absence as she instructed. I then notified the rest of the Council of our meeting and asked that they bring any information they could find. I now ask any who have information to share it. Captain Lupin?”
Remus shook his head, “I was unable to discover anything in General Granger’s notes, and no one in my department has come forth with information.”
Neville nodded, “General W. Weasley, have you discovered anything further?”
Bill nodded, standing once more, “Upon further investigation, we have been able to determine that General Granger managed to kill at least one of her attackers. We also found evidence that there was an ambush already in place when General Granger entered the house, and the four that attacked from the front served as a distraction.”
“General Snape?”
The sallow man stood, his single eye glaring at the table, “My order was able to ascertain that General Granger is indeed being held by a Death Eater. She was apparently brought before the Dark Lord who, upon being unable to glean any information from her mind or through conventional methods, gave her over to one of the higher ranked Death Eaters to work over, in hopes that she would be more vocal. Unfortunately we were unable to determine who exactly is currently keeping her prisoner. We are however able to ascertain that the veritaserum inoculation General Sprout’s division created seems to work as it should. We have also compiled a list of the Death Eaters or their associates who are known to be powerful enough to dismantle her wards, which has been passed on to General Black’s division.”
Neville nodded, any method to prevent the Death Eaters from discovering important information that was proved to work was good news. “Thank-you, General Black, anything to add?”
Sirius shook his head, “None of our guests are fresh enough to know anything about this plan. We’ll need new sources to find anything. Also, our Captain of Legimancy has informed me that the most recent prisoners seem to have found a method to block Legimens without the use of Occlumency.”
There was a round of frowns at that news.
“That is… troubling,” Neville said, before turning to the Diplomatic General, “General Lovegood, have our allies heard anything concerning our current situation?”
Luna shook her head, “They have heard nothing, however we have received offers from the Vampire Clans to the North to track her scent in exchange for a new batch of willing donors, and the forest spirits have offered to scry her in exchange for regular offerings of seeds.”
“We shall take their offerings into consideration, Co-Generals Weasley?”
Fred and George stood up, “We had no information to offer the council at this time,” Fred started, “However we are willing to send a retrieval team if we are able to ascertain General Granger’s location,” George finished.
“General R. Weasley?”
Ron just shook his head.
“General Burgess?”
Matthew Burgess was a rather weedy looking man, with sandy hair and one brown and one blue eye, but despite his appearance the Hunter Liaison and General of the Hunter Division was a force to be reckoned with, and his ability to network in the notoriously paranoid hunter community just reinforced that.
“We’ve heard nothing, but we’ll keep an ear on the ground, so to speak.”
“General N. Tonks?”
“The latest batch of trainees will complete their training in two days, but I’ve heard nothing concerning General Granger’s disappearance, which may be a concern in and of itself, because there’s not even been the normal gossip and speculation.”
“That might be something to look into,” Neville allowed before turning to the Healer General. “General Pomphrey?”
“None of my patients have heard anything. We are also running low on blood replenisher and surgical thread again.”
“General Malfoy?”
“There’s been some general excitement among some of the known associates of the Death Eaters, but nothing more concrete than that.”
“General Bones?”
“Nothing at this time.”
“General A. Tonks?”
“We are short on blankets and shoes in the shelters, but no news on General Granger.”
“General Shacklebolt?”
“The Traditionalist Advisory Council would like to once again recommend permanent bodyguards for anyone of General rank and our Commander and Vice-Commander as a method to prevent more situations of this kind.”
“General Hagrid?”
“The paired divisions would like ter offer their services in any retrieval effort.”
“We will keep that in mind. General Sprout?”
“We have nothing to report on the subject of General Granger; however we are happy to announce that we can produce enough of the Veritaserum Inoculation for this group by the end of next week, and for the Captains within the next three months.”
“That is good news. General Flitwick?”
“Nothing.”
“General Finch-fletchy?”
“A little late for General Granger, but we believe we have finally been able to produce a chip that will allow us to track anyone with it even in magic rich environments.”
Neville nodded, he and Hadrea were hesitant about the concept, but had been forced to admit its potential usefulness.
“We will reconvene in half-an-hour to go over what we plan to do with the information we have gathered.”
They all moved to stand and stretch, several personal conversations popping up as Neville and Hadrea retreated to the anteroom, with Hadrea’s notepad.
Once the door had closed and the wards activated, they both slumped in exhaustion.
“Neville, it's Hermione. We can’t just leave her,” she pleaded.
He shook his head, “And we won’t, but you and I both know we can’t afford to give the vampires any more donors. The forest spirits’ request is not unreasonable, if Pomona allows that we have the extra seeds, we can afford to work with them.”
“I’m just scared that scrying won’t be enough. And our tracking division isn’t even close to good enough to get through the level of wards she will be under. The Northern Vampire Clans may be the only ones capable of tracking her,” she grimaced. Hermione was her friend, but Neville was right, they couldn’t afford to renegotiate their contract with the Northern Vampire Clans again.
She sighed, leaning her head on his shoulder, “So we set Pomona and Luna to negotiating with the forest spirits, and respectfully decline the vampires’ generous offer. We should also schedule all the Generals for the inoculation as well as ourselves. However I’m not so comfortable with Justin’s new device should it prove to work, what do you think?”
“I think… we can’t ignore the potential uses… but we also can’t ignore the possible dangers. For now I vote that those who would like the chip can get it but that it will not be mandatory. What do you think we should do about the worrying lack of gossiping in Tonks’s recruits?”
“I think we should have Sirius send in Fleur. On that note, while we have a retrieval team on standby we should see if our next raid can provide some more knowledgeable prisoners… We should also have Sprout and Flitwick analyze this Legimancy barrier and see if we can find a way around it, and recreate a version for ourselves.”
“That may be useful. We should set Ron on planning a raid that will get us what we need. We also need to have Luna and Andromeda work with Poppy and Pomona to see if we can fix our current deficits before they become serious.”
Harry nodded, before grimacing, “We won’t be able to put the traditionalists off much longer, not without inciting rebellion.”
He also grimaced, “No. So far the excuse of not knowing who the spies are has worked, especially after McGonagall was revealed as a traitor, but this incident will just give them fuel to push their demands through unless we can think of an alternative.”
“So we have Kingsley tell them we are considering, and the two of us pull a few of the others into a council to come up with that alternative when we can.”
He nodded and they spent the remainder of the time until they reconvened in a comfortable silence.
Hadrea took a deep breath before nodding at Lucius and Sirius and apparating a few blocks down from the ministry building. This meeting would show whether their hard work the last several weeks had paid off and they had to be at their best. Keeping a wary eye out, Sirius and Lucius flanked her as she made her way to the ministry.
They froze in shock when they reached the atrium. A crowd had already gathered, but was keeping its distance, staring.
Hadrea sucked in a shocked breath, falling back into Sirius. No. It was Hermione. She was hanging from the ceiling in the facsimile of a grotesque angel, her arms spread to either side, with Raven feathers forming sleeves in an imitation of wings. Raven feathers she recognized with a sense of horror as belonging to Hermione’s animagus form. She was wearing a dress that had probably been white to start, but was now stained red with blood. Her hair and the feathers were matted in it. Her cheeks were hollowed, and her hands skeletal. Her eyes were sewn open, the brown dull in death. Her expression was pained, as if she’d spent her last moments screaming.
Hadrea recognized the handiwork as belonging to Barty Crouch Jr. and wanted to throw up. She began shaking, shaking with horror, with grief, with burning, furious, rage. This was a mockery of everything Hermione stood for. The wings a representation of the freedom she’d wanted so desperately and would now never have. She felt her eyes sting, but she could not cry, not here, not now, not while she was the Commander of a war yet to be won, not while Hermione’s murderer, her torturer was still out there alive while she was not.
Lucius put a hand on her shoulder, and she gave a jerky nod, standing up straight. She still had a job to do. Hermione would want her to carry on, to complete the work she started.
“Sirius,” she was glad her voice was steady, strong. “Contact the Mayhem and Havoc Generals, and have them send a team to retrieve the body. We need the Healer General to know to be on standby to perform autopsy and confirm that the handiwork is Crouch’s. We also need her to send someone to tell Ron and have him come to confirm identity. Then summon Vice-Commander Longbottom and have him gather anyone else he trusts with a title and meet us here in two hours. After you have done this, meet us in the usual conference room. We need to rework our plans. We need to make a statement. We will not allow this to go unanswered.”
Harry looked up when there was a knock on her door, “Come in,” she called, sitting up and trying not to look as tired as she felt. Ron entered the room, looking drawn and haunted, and took a seat in front of her desk. He then handed her an envelope.
“What’s this?” she asked, a sinking feeling forming in her gut.
“My resignation,” he answered hoarsely.
“Ron—” she started but he cut her off harshly.
“NO. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t focus on anything other than hunting down her killer right now. I am not fit to lead at the moment, and my division is suffering for it. Viktor is more than capable of replacing me, and I’ve left everything in order so there should be no arguments against him doing so. I am also requesting leave to take a small team of volunteers from the men to hunt down and eliminate Crouch,” he spat the name like a curse.
She stared at him for a long moment, knowing there was no changing his mind. Finally she nodded, “Request granted, see General N. Tonks about volunteers and present her with this,” she handed him a quickly drafted note with her seal and signature. Ron nodded, getting up to leave.
“And Ron?” he stopped to look at her, “Give the bastard hell,” she snarled—she couldn’t take the time to take him down herself, she had responsibilities she could not, would not abandon, but she could do this. Could allow Ron to chase after vengeance for both of them.
He gave her a cold grin before leaving, and she knew that he would not stop until Crouch was dead.
Report on Mission 8215
Submitted to Commander Potter
Co-submitted to Vice-Commander Longbottom, General Krum, and General N. Tonks
24 June, 1999
Free-Lance Agent Ronald Weasley, took a group of 25 soldiers to the location provided on Death Eater Barty Crouch Junior on 19 June, 1999 in an attempt to eliminate Crouch and any Death Eaters found with him. They arrived on site at 11:00 hours and set up an ambush. At 12:00 hours the ambush was sprung and battle was joined. Due to incorrect intelligence as to the numbers of Death Eaters to be present, Rebellion forces, despite the advantage of surprise were soon overrun by vastly superior numbers. Agent Weasley issued orders for those remaining alive to retreat, but made no move to do so himself. Orders were ignored by all present. Agent Weasley completed mission aims by taking out Death Eater Crouch with a bombardment curse to the gut, and once more issued orders for a retreat, this time moving to do so himself. Retreat proved impossible without a distraction, and Agent Weasley thanked those with him before diving back into the midst and activating Device F-802. Honoring his choice, this time orders were followed. Those able left the premises and observed them destroyed, before returning to base. Agent Weasley assumed dead, but with no body the death is unconfirmed. 16 of the 25 accompanying soldiers also assumed dead with visual confirmations for 4. 7 of those remaining reported to medical for treatment of wounds with 2 succumbing to their injuries after.
Lieutenant Allison Coleborn
General Battalion