Chapter One
From his place on the tower, the battle was laid out before him: the Aurors on one side, the Death Eaters on the other. In the dark of the night, the light of each spell flying from one side to the other was the only thing that lit the sky.
Still, he remained above it.
"When do you plan on joining the battle?" said a voice from behind him. That was the second time he had asked that same question in the last few minutes.
He didn't have a good answer. To be honest, he didn't know why he was waiting or what he was waiting for. Maybe he was waiting to see if the battle could be won without him. Maybe he wanted to see just how prepared the Aurors were or just how well-trained the Death Eaters had become over the last few months.
Maybe, just maybe, he was simply being patient.
His friends would have told him that he was simply being dramatic, waiting for the opportunity to make a scene. While he wasn't certain that was entirely true, he knew that they weren't completely wrong either. But that was because he knew just how powerful a dramatic and effective entrance could be.
And when he finally raised his wand, he knew that that was exactly the kind of entrance that he was about to make.
Earlier that day…
Somehow, someway, Ronald Bilius Weasley had become a creature of habit. During his Hogwarts years, routine had never been a big deal for him. He would frequently wake up with just enough time to hop in the shower, sprint to The Great Hall for breakfast, and then land in his seat just moments before his first class. During his sixth and final year at Hogwarts, that inclination had gotten even worse since his first class typically wasn't until just before lunch, meaning that he could sleep in basically as long as he wanted.
Even a two-year relationship with Hermione hadn't really encouraged him to develop any sort of consistent day-to-day routine, despite his ex-girlfriend's consistent efforts. Of course, when she had learned that Ron had developed a routine once he had joined the Special Activities Force, a unit created by Tonks to capture high profile targets such as most of Voldemort's former Inner Circle, she had just rolled his eyes.
His routine wasn't particularly unique, but it was his. He woke up early each day, usually sometime around five in the morning. Within minutes, he was out the door, taking a thirty minute jog around downtown London to wake himself up. From there, he'd return to his apartment, shower, have a quick breakfast before taking the London Underground to the Ministry of Magic.
Ron had developed his love for the train after an injury he had suffered during a mission to capture Augustus Rookwood had left him incapable of Apparating for nearly two months. At first, he thought that using the Tube was a punishment but as time went on, Ron learned to appreciate the time that he spent on the train. Now, he used that time before he arrived at work each morning to center himself in preparation for the onslaught to come.
Part of the reason that Ron had developed a routine in the first place was because each and every day when he entered the Ministry, he was swarmed by reporters, photographers, and the like, all of them asking variations of the same question.
"When was Harry coming back?"
Every morning, Ron would smile and give the same canned answer ("No comment" or something of the like) that he had the day before as he marched past them and headed for the lift. In truth, Ron couldn't have given them more information than that, because he had no more information than that. Four and a half years ago, Harry had left with Dumbledore, Viktor, and Fleur to go train and then hunt down Voldemort. As he said before he left, Harry did come home every few months for a couple of weeks before he randomly disappeared again. Despite many, repeated efforts by his friends, Harry told no one where they had been or what they had been doing, only insinuating that whatever they were working on was going to stop Voldemort once and for all.
This time, it had been six months, the longest Harry had been away since his initial departure.
Ron took the lift to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement where the Auror Office was located. At the very back of the floor was a small series of offices where Ron's office was located. When he arrived, he was not surprised to see that his partner was already there. Ron's routine may have improved over the years, but it was nothing compared to the dedication of his partner, who routinely arrived before six in the morning.
"Morning, Weasley," Parvati mumbled, her eyes never rising from the parchment in front of her.
"Parvati, you were here when I left last night. Did you sleep at all?" Ron asked as he squeezed past her desk to get to his own. The office that Ron and Parvati shared was small, barely enough room for their two desks and a filing cabinet which held most of their documentation on their recent investigations. Ron would have liked a larger office, but he knew better than to complain. Being a member of the SAF was a privilege extended to only a few Aurors. For the others, including a number of Aurors who had been at the Ministry longer than Ron had been alive, they had a desk out in the bullpen and that was it.
At the very least, Ron had a space to call his own, one that he shared with Harry's on and off-again girlfriend.
As Ron sat, he looked across the desk and considered Parvati Patil. Just like Ron, she had joined the Auror Academy immediately after The Battle of Godric's Hollow. Unlike Ron, who had needed some additional training to make it through the Academy, Parvati had soared, earning some of the highest scores on the entrance and aptitude tests that the Aurors had ever seen.
However, that had come at a bit of a cost. While Ron and Hermione might not have been in a relationship anymore, they were still friends, the closest one either of them had. Parvati, on the other hand, had no one. Padma, who worked as a Section Chief for the Department of Magical Transportation, said that she barely spoke to her sister, who worked compulsively, far above and beyond the expected hours of any Auror, even a member of the SAF.
Ron guessed there were two reasons for this. One, Antonin Dolohov was still out there. Two, any Death Eater that they captured was a step closer to bringing Harry home permanently. In the last four years, Harry and Parvati had broken up and gotten back together at least three times by Ron's count and he admittedly wasn't the most aware person in the world. Hell, he knew that it was likely that it had happened more times than that and that neither Harry nor Parvati had bothered to tell anyone.
It wasn't that they didn't care for each other. Far from it, in fact. Over the last four years, Harry had spent probably a total of three months in England. The rest of that time, he had been...elsewhere. So, when Harry came home, trying to acclimate to the expectations of another person was difficult, especially for two people as stubborn as Harry and Parvati.
Long-term, Ron hoped that things worked out for the two of them, but the longer the hunt for Voldemort went, the less hope Ron had for their chances.
Despite Ron's prestigious place among the SAF, his day-to-day work was boring by all accounts. Just like every other Auror, Ron spent most of his day filling out paperwork and going through evidence. Currently, Parvati and Ron were assigned to bring in Rabastan Lestrange. Unlike his brother, Rodolphus, Rabastan had managed to escape The Battle of Godric's Hollow and had been on the run since then. There were rumors among the seedier parts of the wizarding world that he was actually hiding in a home in London that had been purchased by his sister-in-law, Bellatrix, before it had been transferred to Rodolphus.
Unfortunately, due to the magical nature of most wizarding dwellings, it was often impossible for the Ministry to repossess these homes because there were stipulations in their deeds that turned them over to other family members if they died or were imprisoned. These deeds were held and monitored by the goblins of Gringotts and, as a general policy, the Ministry tried to interfere with the goblins' business as little as possible.
That meant searching the home, hovel, and hiding place of every Death Eater, sympathizer, or ally that they could find, looking for anything that could lead them to Rabastan Lestrange, assuming, of course, that they could come up with enough information to tie a person to Lestrange in the first place. Ron knew that it was a good thing that they had nearly four thousand rules on what they could and couldn't do, but on days like today where he would spend most of his time staring at property deeds and old letters from Death Eaters, Ron couldn't help but wish that he could be a little bit more like Harry who was free to hunt for Voldemort how he saw fit as long as he wasn't wantonly murdering people left and right.
"I slept fine," Parvati finally answered, although Ron could tell that she was lying. The great part about being an Auror was that you learned little tricks about how to read people. More importantly, Aurors learned to tell when people were lying and Parvati had a fairly obvious tell (whereas most people looked away when they lied, Parvati instead stared directly at you, only to look away at the last minute) that she hid from everyone else. It was a sign of their closeness, both professional and personal, that she didn't bother to hide her tell, knowing that Ron would pick up on it.
"Right, right. How was dinner with Hermione and Nathaniel?"
"They bailed on me."
"Really?"
"Well, Hermione bailed on Nathaniel and then they both bailed on dinner."
"Wait a minute...Hermione broke up with Nathaniel?"
"Apparently. I got a letter from Nathaniel about thirty minutes after they were supposed to be at my place. Hermione's letter came about ten minute later. Both of them were uncharacteristically brief."
"You get a lot of letters from Nathaniel?"
"No," Parvati admitted, "but you've met the guy. He...likes to talk."
Nathaniel Davidson was an advocate within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, one of the best at putting away Death Eaters. As such, he was staunchly in favor of Muggleborn rights and ensuring that the laws that currently favored the Death Eaters were written out, two high priorities for anyone seeking to date Hermione Granger.
Unfortunately, Nathaniel loved to talk and mostly about himself. The first time Ron had met Nathaniel had been at a fundraising event for St. Mungo's on the second anniversary of The Battle of Godric's Hollow. Amelia Bones had introduced Nathaniel to both him and Hermione and in the fifteen minutes that Nathaniel talked to them, Ron wasn't entirely sure that the man took a breath, asked a question, or talked about anything that wasn't the legislation that he was in the process of writing.
Ron had hated Nathaniel the first time he had met him and that dislike had only intensified when Hermione revealed a few weeks earlier that she and Nathaniel were dating. Of course, that was both a blessing and a curse. It meant that Nathaniel would be around more often, but it also meant that Nathnaiel would likely be out of the picture sooner rather than later. Since Hermione had broken up with Ron a little over twenty months ago, she had had six boyfriends.
None of the relationships had lasted longer than five weeks.
The reasons differed from one to the other. One hated that Hermione was more famous than he was (he was a reserve for the Wimbourne Wasps), one despised Hermione's work schedule (which could only be described as excessive), and another tried to convince Hermione to quit her job so that she could have his babies two weeks after they started dating.
The fact that the last man was still standing (or breathing) was only due to Parvati's intervention.
"Did she say what happened?" Ron asked.
"I talked to her for a minute this morning," Parvati replied. "Apparently, in the hour before they were supposed to be at my place, Nathaniel spent forty-five consecutive minutes rambling about the Macnair case and how he was doing such a good job and how he couldn't believe that Bones hadn't promoted him yet. By eight, when they were supposed to be at my place, he still hadn't even gotten dressed."
If there was a cardinal sin for dating Hermione Granger, it was being late, one that Ron had committed far too many times over their years together.
"Wow."
"Yeah, she told him, and I quote, if he didn't get his head out of his ass, she would leave him."
"That's harsh...for Hermione anyway."
"The best part was that Nathaniel told her that she wouldn't leave him."
"Excuse me?"
Parvati smiled. "He told her, his words, that she wouldn't break up with him because she needed to be married to someone influential to become the Minister of Magic."
Of all of the completely asinine things that he could have said, the idea that Hermione Granger wasn't going to be the Minister of Magic one day, with or without his help, was the top of the list. Hermione, only a few months after the Battle of Godric's Hollow, had been on the short list for the Minister of Magic after Amelia Bones had lost the faith of the Wizengamot. She had been eighteen years old at the time. While it was widely assumed that Hermione's name was on the list only to appease those that wanted a Muggleborn Minister, the fact that it was her name spoke volumes.
When the Minister had been selected, he had reached to ask Hermione to be his Senior Undersecretary, a position that he had asked her to fill three different times in the four and a half years since he had taken office.
Of course, Hermione, like a lot of people, truly disliked Percy, so she declined again.
"Well, I can't say that I'm surprised then," said Ron.
"Honestly, I'm just surprised that it took this long."
And that was it. For the rest of the day, they were all business. Ron lost a Galleon flip and had to sit in on the Auror Initiate meeting, a weekly meeting for those Aurors who were in their first year of being an Auror or, more accurately stated, those that had finished the Academy but still needed another year as an Initiate before they could become a fully fledged Auror.
The meeting was boring and Ron hated every time that he had to go. Each pair of partners in the SAF had been assigned another team that they had to coordinate with. It was Ron and Parvati's luck that they drew the short straw and were assigned to the Initiate team. Thankfully, the annual reassignment was due in March and since no one was ever assigned to the same team two years in a row, Ron knew that his time with the Initiates was coming to an end.
Today's lecture from Head Auror Tonks (or Auror Tonks, or just Tonks as she still preferred to be called even if you were an Initiate) was about the benefits of understanding a building's floor plan before entering it. This was basic level Academy material, the kind of thing they were taught almost immediately. However, during their year as an Initiate, they reviewed every lesson that they learned at the Academy in order to really drive the point home.
Ron had hated it as an Initiate and he hated it now.
Once his work day was over, Ron headed home. Again, Ron took the Underground home, enjoying the relative quiet of the train. When he reached the surface once more, Ron, instead of immediately heading home, decided to take a stroll through the neighborhood. Despite its proximity to the center of London, the neighborhood in general was quiet, even with the Muggle primary school only a few blocks away.
Ron wasn't the only magical person who lived in the area. Ginny and Katie had an apartment that was only a few blocks from his that neither of them ever saw due to their Quidditch schedules. Cho Chang lived in a small house about a kilometer away and Justin Finch-Fletchley had moved into the same apartment building that Ron lived in. Thankfully, the owner of Ron's apartment complex was a witch and therefore offered certain accommodations, like the ability to use both magic and electricity in the same space, that most apartment complexes couldn't.
After Ron arrived home, he made himself a quick dinner of chicken and rice before sitting down with the intention of watching some tele, a habit that he had picked up from living with Hermione. While he didn't watch too much, he found that being aware of the Muggle world was helpful for his job and so he did his best to watch the evening news as often as possible. Tonight, there were reports of a cat burglar making visits to a few of the massive Muggle mansions on the outskirts of London, but beyond that, nothing of any real note.
By ten that night, Ron was in bed and within minutes, he was asleep. Ron was in the middle of a really great dream about the Chudley Cannons finally winning the league title when a loud, whooping siren blared in his ear, causing him to shoot up from a deep sleep. On the far end of the room was a mirror. It was simple, nearly three meters high, and, importantly, a communication device between the members of the SAF.
Ron launched himself from the bed and raced to the far end of the room where he placed his hand on the glass, which stopped the alarm and caused the image of Head Auror Nymphadora Tonks to appear in the mirror. Like Ron, she was clearly dressed for bed.
Knowing his niece, Tonks probably hadn't been asleep that long.
"Tonks?" Ron mumbled. He looked at the clock in the corner of the room. It read twelve minutes past midnight.
"Get dressed and Apparate to the garrison at New Hogsmeade," Tonks said, a steel in her voice that Ron rarely heard from her.
"What's going on?" Ron asked as he waved his wand towards the closet. While they spoke, his official Auror attire floated into the room and fell onto the bed.
"The Death Eaters have attacked."
"When?" Ron said as he began to change clothes.
"Less than ten minutes ago. We have reports of at least a dozen Death Eaters, still no idea who is leading them."
In the years since Voldemort's disappearance, the Death Eaters had occupied a strange place in their world. Every few months, they would attack Diagon Alley or New Hogsmeade. The attacks were usually well coordinated and allowed them to get in and out quickly before the Aurors had time to react. However, these attacks never did any real damage and over the years, the number of people killed by Death Eaters had been dramatically reduced.
As a result, there were some who believed that the Death Eater threat was gone and that the Special Activities Force should be reassigned.
Ron knew that they were wrong. The Death Eaters were simply biding their time. If and when Voldemort returned, they would be ready to follow his lead once more. Until then, they were making sure that they remained in the public eye. The most curious part of the whole situation was that even after four years of hunting the Death Eaters, no one had any idea who was in charge. Half a dozen influential Death Eaters had been captured over that time frame but none of them had given them a name.
If Ron had to guess, he imagined that it was either Snape or Dolohov, two of Voldemort's closest allies.
In any case, the Aurors had established a permanent garrison in New Hogsmeade to prevent this kind of thing from happening. Now, Ron could only hope that they would be able to capture someone before they all turned tail.
"I'm on my way now," Ron replied. "Who is the Auror-in-charge?"
"That would be you," Tonks said. "Currently, Senior Auror Lewis is in charge. You will relieve him of his command when you arrive on scene."
"Lewis? He's got like three decades seniority on me."
"And you're a member of the SAF. That takes precedent, Auror Weasley," Tonks said firmly. "The rest of the SAF will join you at the Headmaster's Office. Proceed to the garrison and push the Death Eaters out of New Hogsmeade. If you can capture some of them, great. If not, that's fine."
That sounded a little too vague for Ron's liking.
"What's our authorization level?" Ron asked. He was dressed and ready to Apparate in a moment's notice once he knew just how aggressive his orders were.
"Percy confirmed an escalation authorization."
Escalation meant that if the Death Eaters started throwing Killing Curses, then all bets were off. It was better than a kill-on-sight authorization, but not by much. Death Eaters loved throwing Killing Curses after all.
"Thanks, Tonks. I'll give you an update once we have the situation under control."
"Good luck."
And with that, Tonks disappeared from his mirror. At almost exactly the same time, Ron turned in place. One moment, he was standing in his bedroom and the next, he was standing in the New Hogsmeade Auror depot, a small office building that had been established when the town had been rebuilt after the Death Eaters first assault on the town during The Battle of Hogwarts five years earlier. Outside the front windows, Ron could see the telltale sign of spellfire flashing past, a mix of red and (unfortunately) green.
Moments later, the rest of the SAF arrived. Parvati landed behind him with Daphne Greengrass right next to her. On the other side of Daphne were Aurors Samantha (who preferred to be called Sam) Williamson, Michael Kiner, and Kevin Goran. Williamson was the most tenured Auror in the entire Office, having been an Auror for almost thirty-five years. Kiner was another Senior Auror with just over ten years of service. Goran, who had been a classmate of Ron's brother, Bill, had been an Auror for the last eight years.
Three Junior Aurors and three Senior Aurors. That had been the mandate from the Minister of Magic and his Senior Undersecretary when the Special Activities Force had been created. Tonks, in a rather ingenious move, had assigned three of her most experienced Aurors to the team, paired with three former members of The Lightning Legion.
Then, she had placed Ron and Williamson in charge of the unit. Technically, the SAF had no leader. It was a six-person team that worked in concert with other units. They just happened to all work on cases related to high profile Death Eaters. However, in the few instances where they needed to go into the field together, Tonks had paired Ron, with his incredibly high Academy marks in strategy and adaptability, with Williamson, who knew more about Auror tactics than the rest of the Office combined.
It had taken Ron a long time to gain the respect of his older colleagues, but after years of consistent success, he felt like he finally had it.
Once Ron was certain that everyone was present and ready, he moved towards the door, the rest of the SAF on his heels. Once they were outside, Ron was able to get a better sense of how the battle was going. Immediately, Ron noticed a few things. First, it was snowing.
Hard.
The snow meant cold hands and decreased visibility, a tandem that would lead to terrible aim on either side of the battle.
The second thing that Ron noticed was that the numbers that Ron had been given were wrong. Instead of a dozen Death Eaters, there had to be at least three dozen, which would make this the largest Death Eater attack since Godric's Hollow.
The Death Eaters stood shoulder to shoulder at the far end of Main Street, one row kneeling in the snow in front of the other. In front of the garrison, the Aurors had set up a roughly three foot tall barricade that one row of Aurors was kneeling behind. A second row of Aurors stood about ten meters back from that wall, lobbing spells over the wall and towards the Death Eaters.
The last thing that Ron saw was that Senior Auror Johnathan Lewis was dead, his corpse lying in the middle of Main Street, staring blankly at the clouds above. In fact, nearly half a dozen of the two dozen Aurors that were stationed at New Hogsmeade were down, although Ron couldn't be certain if the others were dead.
With Lewis gone, Ron noticed another Senior Auror, Charles Hardison, standing in the back, staring blankly forward as the Death Eaters marched towards them. Within the Auror Office, there was no set standard for when an Auror was promoted from Junior Auror to Senior Auror. It was entirely up to whoever was the Head Auror to promote any Junior Aurors who they felt were worthy to Senior Aurors, which came with extra responsibilities but also a say in how the Auror Office was run and what assignments they were given.
For some, like Johnathan Lewis, it happened quickly. In Lewis' case, that was just under five years. But for someone like Charles Hardison, it had taken him twenty-four years to become a Senior Auror, making him one of the oldest people ever promoted to Senior Auror. Part of that was due to their differing natures. Lewis was like a hawk, capable of seeing the solution to a problem from a hundred meters away and then executing it. It was part of the reason why Ron had been concerned with taking the lead from Lewis. There was no way that he was a better Auror than Lewis in any scenario.
However, if Lewis was a hawk, then that made Hardison a pigeon. He was a useful Auror, but not one that you wanted to lead anything. That was part of why Hardison had picked him as his assistant at the garrison. Lewis knew that Hardison could run the administrative side of things and he could stick to running the Aurors.
Of course, Ron doubted that Lewis expected to be killed before Hardison.
Ron sprinted to Hardison, who noticed Ron as he ran and visibly relaxed.
"Oh, thank Merlin," Hardison said in a sentence that inspired so little confidence in his own command that Ron almost felt sorry for the man for just a moment.
"Hardison, I'm relieving you of your command," Ron ordered firmly.
"Yes, sir," Hardison replied as he stepped out of the way, allowing Ron to take the point position. Of course, when Ron got into position, he immediately noticed that things had gotten worse in the few seconds that it had taken him to get in place. The Death Eaters were beginning to move into the town proper. The biggest concern was that if they made it another few meters forward, then they would be able to wall off access to the side streets of New Hogsmeade, meaning that they could use that opportunity to get behind the garrison and surround them.
If they allowed the Death Eaters to get to the next intersection, they would likely lose the town. The Death Eaters wouldn't have the strength to occupy the town for long, but it would be long enough to do some real damage, not to mention that public relations nightmare that the loss would cause for the Ministry and the Aurors.
"Daphne, take the unit on the left and push forward to there," Ron said, pointing out an alley where they could defend. "Parvati, take the unit on the right and mirror her."
Both of them quickly raced off to give their orders to their new units. While they moved into position, Ron turned to the others.
"Once they're in position, Sam, Michael, Kevin: you take the others and push forward, right down the middle. Your goal is to reach the intersection and hold it. Once you're in position, I'll order the others to block the side streets. If we can box them in from there, they'll have no choice but to retreat."
Behind him, Ron heard Hardison speak up.
"Where would you like me, sir?" Hardison asked meekly.
Ron wanted to tell him to jump in The Black Lake. Instead, he turned and pointed to a spot next to him.
"Here. You'll be my second. If I need someone to run commands to one of the units, you'll be my man."
The answer was still insulting and Hardison knew it. He also knew that Ron was the younger brother of the Minister of Magic, the brother-in-law of the Head Auror, one of the members of The Lightning Legion, one-third of The Trio, and a far better Auror that Hardison had ever been. So rather than mouthing off or protesting in any way, Hardison simply nodded and assumed his place.
Having dealt with that minor annoyance, Ron turned back to the others and motioned for them to go.
"How did they get Lewis?" Ron asked as the others began their push forward. Ron and Hardison remained about forty meters behind. Close enough that they could offer support if they needed to, but far enough away from Ron to see the whole situation play out in front of him.
"Exploding Curse hit that barricade," Hardison muttered as he pointed over his shoulder at the remains of the middle barricade.
"Why was he so far forward?"
"John led from the front," Hardison said. "It's just the way he was. Curse hit the barricade and threw him backwards. As he tried to get up, a Killing Curse snuck through and hit him. Never even got back to his feet."
It was a tough way to go for someone as experienced as Lewis, but that's the way that war worked. Sometimes, most of the time, it made little sense at all and took those who it had no business taking.
The Aurors did exactly as Ron expected. The center unit, a team of almost a dozen Aurors, slowly pushed forward into the intersection, blocking the Death Eaters before they were able to get there. Once the middle unit was in place, the other units sprinted ahead, using the corners of the intersection as cover in order to ensure that the Death Eaters wouldn't be able to use the side streets.
All that they needed to do was box them in and that would be the end of that.
Then, out of nowhere, a spell flew from behind Ron, flying only a few inches over his shoulder, and hit Hardison in the back. The spell threw Hardison forward, knocking over two members of the center unit's rear guard. Ron turned around to see three Death Eaters who had clearly sneaked away from the battle to circle around them. While they'd been able to keep most of the unit in place, Ron quickly realized that they might have been aiming for that in the first place. Ron had been sure that there was no way to circle around them and so he had focused his entire force forward.
Now, with a small team of Death Eaters behind him and his Aurors distracted, the Death Eaters had a clear advantage which they immediately began to press. All at once, the Death Eaters sprinted towards them from both directions, leaving Ron to defend their rear alone while the others dealt with the rest of the Death Eaters in the front. While Ron had certainly become a better duelist over the years, three-on-one were never good odds, not unless you were Dumbledore or Voldemort.
Or Harry, Ron thought to himself.
Still, none of these Death Eaters were as well trained or as talented as he was. That didn't make the fight easy, but it did make it decisive. A Stunner sent the first one flying into one of the houses behind him while a Cutting Curse removed the lower leg of the second. The third hit Ron with a Disarming Charm, but Ron, like the rest of the Aurors, wore wrist holsters that specifically prevented them from being Disarmed. Ron's wand left his hand momentarily only to snap back a second later.
With a confident smirk on his face, Ron Disarmed the Death Eater before Stunning him while his wand still floated in the air. Ron didn't even bother to catch the wand as he turned back to the others. While Ron had been handling the rear, the Aurors in the front were struggling. Two of the garrison Aurors were on the ground, motionless, while another was actively being tortured by the Death Eaters in front of them. The numbers were clearly starting to turn in favor of the Death Eaters and sooner rather than later, Ron was going to have to consider pulling them out. They wouldn't completely give up the town, but they would need to return to the garrison and regroup before launching another assault to push the Death Eaters out, hopefully with some reinforcements from London.
Ron was about ready to order a retreat just as Hardison fell to the ground for the third time when he saw something out of the corner of his eye: a quick flash of white light. Ron turned his eyes up to the bell tower of The Three Broomsticks where he saw a streak of white light fly from the bell tower to a spot just in front of where the Death Eaters stood. For their part, the Death Eaters seemed just as distracted by the light as he was.
Initially, the light appeared to weave towards the ground, but when the light finally touched the ground in between the Death Eaters and the Aurors, the light suddenly went taut, almost as if it became more solid than light. Another flash of white light, this time much brighter, blanketed the area from the bell tower before an explosion of light suddenly burst forth from the spot where the light had hit the ground, simultaneously blinding them all before throwing them to the ground.
The moment Ron's back hit the ground, he heard the unmistakable sound of spells being cast. As he sat back up, he saw someone that had not been there before. They wore a black cloak like the Death Eaters, but this one came with a hood which was currently covering their face. As the Death Eaters did their best to regain their footing, the cloaked figure attacked. While most people used a wand as an instrument, this person seemed to barely regard their wand at all. Instead, it seemed like the wand was simply an extension of them as if they were the ones truly casting the magic and the wand was simply a friend there to guide them.
The cloaked figure moved quickly and deliberately like a dancer without a single wasted motion. The Death Eaters, some of whom watched the cloaked figure attack the others, began to immediately retreat once the cloaked figure attacked. All in all, nearly a dozen Death Eaters were captured as the Death Eaters sprinted away from New Hogsmeade.
Forced away by a single person in black.
While the other Aurors seemed wary of the cloaked figure, Ron had little doubt that he knew the identity of their ally. He had seen that wandwork too often.
"How long have you been back?" Ron said as he approached the figure. Rather than responding, the figure turned around and removed his hood, revealing none other than his oldest friend.
"Ron."
In the years since Godric's Hollow, Harry had spent almost every day working to perfect his dueling skill while also honing his body and mind to nearly inhuman levels. However, that had come at the expense of sleep and a truly healthy lifestyle. Harry was skinny, even skinnier than he had been before he had let England the first time. Ron knew that Harry would tell him that he was more muscular now and Harry was probably right, but that did not stop Ron from worrying about his friend, who had some new scars to go with the lightning bolt that graced his forehead. A large mark covered his right eye down to his cheek while something that looked like three small claws had gotten him on the left side of his face.
"You've looked better."
"I've looked worse," Harry replied.
"Not much."
And much to Ron's surprise, Harry smiled at that.
"You're not wrong."
Ron smiled back at Harry, genuinely glad that his friend was back. He hoped that it was permanent, but he had thought that before and knew better than to hope for it. Out of the corner of his eye, Ron saw Albus Dumbledore Apparate into the main square. If Harry looked rough, then Dumbledore somehow looked worse. The last few years had clearly been hard on him. His beard was thinning, he was clearly blind in one eye, and he now walked with a staff that he leaned on so much that Ron wondered if the staff must have been magically reinforced to keep him up.
Ron turned back to Harry, who was no longer looking at him. Instead, Harry was looking at Parvati who stood only a few meters behind Ron. When Ron turned back to her, it was clear that this was not going to be a happy reunion. More than once, Harry had disappeared without letting anyone know. Typically, he left a note for Parvati but this last time, which had turned out to be the longest time, he hadn't and Parvati had been upset at him for days, ranting and raving to anyone who would listen about how she would kill Harry when he got back.
Everyone knew that she was worried and this was how she was expressing it, but they also understood that it wasn't a great move to simply disappear in the middle of the night without any word to your girlfriend when a magical terrorist is out to kill you.
"Parvati."
"Harry."
Neither of them said another word. Ron desperately hoped that they would get the opportunity to talk soon, but now wasn't going to be the time. While Parvati and the others would help the garrison with the cleanup of New Hogsmeade, Ron knew that he needed to report back in with Tonks.
"Mate, I've got to go check in with Tonks. You're coming."
"Actually, I have someone else that I need to talk to."
"Harry, this really isn't up for debate," Ron replied. "You showed up here and helped take out a bunch of Death Eaters. I know that the Ministry gives you a lot of leeway, but you're still going to have to go to the Ministry and debrief."
"I know. I'll talk to Tonks after."
"After what?"
"After I talk to your brother."