A Dark Time For The Light

64

“Wands. We need fucking wands”. Hermione was pacing about in the living room of the House. Severus purred, “We know that, Hermione, but who can we ask to procure us the same?. I feel we will not be able to send Alice in again”. She balked at his truth, raking a hand through her hair, she was frantic. She could almost taste Magic again. The thought was making them all a little delirious.

It was Colin who mooted the idea. “Why don’t we all go. A guerrilla raid. As many of us as we can gather together, Full-ons and demi’s. A show of strength, and no more trying to raid your family’s vault, Draco, though that was a fucking fiendish move, I’ll grant you. All of us as a mini-army. Raid Ollivander’s and bugger off back to London proper, quick-smart, all dressed as Death-Eaters. It’s a long shot, but it might work”.

Alice and Steffie offered to act as the drivers sitting on the London side of the Leaky Cauldron in two dodgily hired mini-vans with the plates swapped to fake ones. Alice helped make all of the robes the cadre would need. Remus threw an arm around the woman, placing a fervent kiss on her temple after he’d tried his new robes on, “Wow, you’re pretty good at this outlaw stuff”. Harry and Draco exchanged a look, “You have absolutely no idea”, as another glance passed between Alice and themselves. She laughed as she and her best friend carried on taking measurements in Alice’s cosy kitchen.

She pulled Harry to one side before they all left her house. “Harry, if you want, the, erm, that, erm. Oh fuck, if you want to borrow the gun it’s unregistered and untraceable. I’m willing to lend it, if I can train you in it’s use. I’m pretty nifty at this. Oh and by the way, I want all of you to wear a wire. I know the combination now and I need the use of ‘my’ wand back in case I have to come in after you lot”. Harry gazed long and hard at this formidable woman, then smiled as he realised he had a true warrior at his back. She was fearless but not foolish, brainy but not brash, cautious but no chicken.

He smiled and nodded, “The feather will be back soon, Alice, but it ultimately belongs to me. My old wand had one such as it’s core”. She grinned, “I know, Harry, you told me already. I will guard it with my life”. He smiled then, “And I will train with your weapon. I sense it’s deep deadliness and I will admit to fear, but I, too, am a warrior and if a Mundane battle weapon wins this, then that is what I will use”. He remembered the prophecy and cringed, “Ultimately, it’s him against me. It has been foretold and the telling is unbreakable. This was laid at my door at birth”.

This silenced her. They shared another look. Alice nodded once and Harry left, feeling warmed to his core. As Draco held him in bed that night, Harry murmured, “I think she’s really powerful. I wonder why she didn’t end up at Hogwarts?”. Then fell asleep amidst encircling arms.

Alice dreamed that night, of owls and letters spinning towards her out of thin air. Her father burning every one as it arrived, a large fire in the grate. A gigantic man on a flying motorcycle sent packing. More letters, then silence. She went to Grammar school at eleven.

They’d planned the raid for the following Saturday. The robes were made, as were the masks and cloaks. Alice had made Draco think really hard about the crests to be sewn on. The Houses of Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson, Malfoy, even Zabini. The eye colours. Dean went for two lots of fake tan to replicate his year-mate’s skin colour and wore almost black lenses to imitate the house of Zabini. Draco was acting the part of his senior. They borrowed the wig as his father’s hair was considerably longer than his own. Harry’s Magical signature could be detected from a mile away, so he reluctantly agreed to ride pointman with Alice.

He wasn’t going to see Diagon Alley this time. Before he donned his hood and mask, Draco kissed Harry tenderly, then threw his arms around him, “Fuck, Harry, I’m scared”, into Harry’s neck. Harry squeezed him, then pulled them slightly apart, “Remember your courage, my Dragon. Come back to me. I will always love you. Now go. Lead these people. Protect Caroline and the others. I’m relying on you, Dragon, to bring them all back”. Draco’s heart sank as he realised the role Harry had played over the years, the brave one, the protector and saviour.

Tension threaded through all of them as they marched purposefully through the Leaky Cauldron. The few raggedy patrons stepped back before them, resplendent in metal masks and full robes. Obviously on His business. Draco tapped the combination with the fake wand and felt a burning up his arm as he used it and the doorway revealed itself.

As a body, and disguised, Draco, Dean, Seamus, Ginny, Hermione, Colin, Terry, and Caroline went into Diagon Alley. They moved in step as they had trained themselves. A phalanx of His minions out to do his business. Alice had felt that the militaristic touch would lend credence and they had all practiced diligently in the back entry behind her house. Everyone was connected to the three phones outside, using the conference call facility.

They all marched into Ollivander’s. Draco took the lead and drawled in his Father’s voice as the others filled their robes from the beleaguered man’s shelves. “A little game my Lord has planned for the weekend, don’t you know?”, he ventured, lightly. “A game, Mister Malfoy?. I was not invited to any games this weekend”. Alice hissed into Draco’s ear, “He suspects something. Act heavy with him”.

Draco loomed over the counter, pulling himself to his full height and dwarfing the smaller man, “Then perhaps you are not truly worthy of being in such an august presence at such a time”, the tone a hiss of barely disguised wrath. The man immediately cowed and kept his eyes down as they looted his shop. They all swept out in a silent billow of robes leaving Ollivander in a quaking heap behind his counter.

They piled into the two minibuses and they were driven straight across town to the boys’ new Bunker all hyper on adrenalin as they stripped off their robes and masks. In Alice’s minibus, they counted one hundred and sixty two wand boxes. In Steffie’s, one hundred and eighty. They exulted. They may not all fit, but by God, they had a few to choose from now.

Hermione summed it up best in the hasty phone conference. “Now all we’ve got to do is find the fucker and kill him”, to cheers from both vans as they sped to the new Bunker. Harry called Severus and Remus and asked them to meet them at the Bunker, giving directions. Severus whinged, pleading his workload, until Harry told him why. “The operation was successful and we have over 350 new pieces of wood for us all to play with”, he kept it cryptic, but heard Sev’s bark of laughter, “We’ll be right there, Harry”. It took them less than twenty minutes. They probably broke a panoply of road laws along the way.