A Dark Time For The Light

87

As the summer became hotter, the group training sessions began in earnest. The houses were all full of those required to train. Neville had left his boyfriend in Scotland attending to the crops. Pansy had elected someone to run the Manchester cadre in her absence, although they were secretly glad to be rid of her controlling nature for a few weeks even though she had been the one mainly instrumental in both securing them these excellent digs and finding the original location for the cadre.

In all there were some 65-odd people between the summer rentals and the Guest House. Angelina had cried off, too near the birth of her second child and Lavender had also dipped out as her own child was ill. The first lecture and the Bunker was full. Harry thanked them all for coming and gave them a rough outline of all he knew, that they had located him purely by chance and that they were now privy to his goings-on at the house.

This caused a murmur to ripple amongst the crowd. “And now we need to train for battle as a group. All of us have wands now and both the London and Manchester cadres have somewhere to train. A few of us have put our heads together and come up with a training schedule”, he unrolled a scroll of paper at the front to reveal a pretty intense timetable, lessons every day with times to be tested if they wished in various skills from Occlumency to Wandcraft. They were all surprised to see Alice’s name as one of the Occlumency coaches.

The Kilmarnock crew were stunned. Neville sidled up to Harry once the lecture was over, “Harry, I thought Alice was untrained and now you have her leading Occlumency?”. Harry grinned, “Wait ‘til she’s rifled your mind a couple of times and then ask me. She’s a miles more powerful Legilimens than even Alastor and Sev has the devil’s own job keeping her out of his head. The only one who comes near is Minerva and she takes a while to build her shields. Believe me she’s the right person for this. She’ll probably lay out the final plans, too, she’s got a head for strategy, that one. She’ll get us in there and get us out again. Knowing her, she’ll use her own wheel-men, people she knows and trusts”.

Neville shook his head, “I’m not sure, Harry. This should be just us Magical folks”. Harry now had the boy on his own in the stairwell out of earshot of the rest of the group, “You know when she first met you? She had three other people stationed in two cars watching you. She was also armed. As in carrying-a-loaded-gun armed. She orchestrated the two raids on Diagon Alley and pretended to be Lucius Malfoy to get Remus his stuff for his Potion, not to mention relieving the Malfoy vault at Gringotts of over 2 million Galleons. Oh, and she comes from a witching family line that’s older than Draco’s”. Neville was astounded. Harry added, “Not to mention that the Wizarding World as a whole seems curiously reluctant to learn to drive”. He left out the more personal stuff about who she was, let her tell her own tale.

The meeting was breaking up. With a hissed request not to divulge the new information he’d been given and a whispered promise from his old friend, they hugged and parted as the class filed out, for the most part Tubing back to the East End. A few, however, stayed behind, mainly from the Scottish contingent as well as other members of the DA present. They all wanted to see his house, live on screen. Alice grinned and a motley crew went next door as Harry locked Bunker 7 and followed them.

Alice booted her computer and immediately they could see the interiors as they clicked through the rooms. There was no-one present at the moment, but she showed some archived footage of various meetings at which most of the attendees looked, frankly, bored, at Voldemort’s boasts about his new domicile and his rather over-blown plans for World domination, after all their were only 300 or so left on his side. One or two of the attendees leaned together and muttered asides that the microphones couldn’t pick up. Alice casually mentioned, “This lot look bored out of their skulls and they have no definite plans. I’m sure if we waited long enough, they’ll all defect anyway, save his hard-liners. Alastor called me last week to help with an ex-Death-Eater dowse, a chap about my age, name of Avery, who had tried to close his mind to Alastor’s dowse. We dragged him to a nice quiet spot I know near the river, and I went to work on him. He did genuinely want to run from Voldie and opened his mind right up to me, well, he couldn’t help himself, poor chap, nearly shat himself. He didn’t have much of any use so I presume he’s not high up in the ranks, certainly not in the charmed circle. He didn’t want to join the cadres and we didn’t mention where they were. He kept asking if a ‘Pettigrew’ had been passed. I couldn’t tell him anything”, she shrugged.

Harry told her about Pettigrew’s death at Hermione’s hands and the breakup of the original cadre, “We were being spied on and we couldn’t take a risk that Voldemort knew of the cadre’s location. We split up and had scattered within half an hour of his death”, said Seamus. Alice roared laughing, “A frying pan?. That’s fuckin’ priceless, that is”.

Neville had shuddered at Alice’s mention of a ‘nice quiet spot’ by the river and looked at this woman that he thought he knew with completely new eyes. He was awed. She caught his expression out of the corner of her eye and did a little probe of all the people in her Bunker except Harry and Draco. Everyone’s eyes widened as they felt a breeze in their minds. She knew these were people that Harry trusted and she grinned at them all, she could trust this lot. They were a bit naive but they all had good hearts. She sat on her desk and faced them all then told them all who she really was. “I sensed distrust amongst you, uncertainty that an untrained Witch such as I could possibly be running sessions, but believe me, I’ve been practicing with Harry, Draco, Severus and Minerva’s help, plus lots of time to practice on my own down here”.

She finished her little speech to a sea of upturned amazed faces. “Wow”, was about the concensus and no-one else said a word for a while. As she had their attention, she eased off the desk and turned her back to them lifting the hem of her top and revealing her scar to gasps behind her. Parvati asked if she could touch and Alice just shrugged, “Help yourself”. The girl reached out a tentative hand and traced the mark with her fingertip, then winced and drew away. “This is exactly like Harry’s scar, has the same signature all over it. I’m no Auror, but Padma and I have the Sight”. Alice smiled at the girl, “I know, I read it. I’m sorry, but I read something private concerning Harry that he and Draco know but no others. It’s probably because you’re here at the moment, so the thought is at the front of your minds. I won’t tell although if it happens, it’ll be the weirdest thing I ever heard of”, she glanced at Harry who went a fetching shade of puce and at the twins who also blushed for Britain and looked down.

There were murmurs among the others, but she sensed a wary reaching out towards trust. Then she told them the real reason she hadn’t attended their school, “They even sent whassisname, Hagrid, to get me, but my step-father sent him away. Said step-father is now cold bones under a patio in the Stockport region of Manchester. It’s where I grew up. It’s where I killed him”, and the others realised then just what a dangerous woman she was. The Patils instantly adored her and decided she was the coolest ‘old’ person they had ever met. They were giggling and deciding how to tell Lavender when they got home, to be stilled by an intense stare from her that raised the hair at the back of their necks. “I don’t expect this information to travel beyond this room”. They guiltily nodded, subdued, and decided she was even cooler. She turned off her computer and the group disbanded for the night.

The Summer House that this group were in, most of them anyway, was abuzz with Alice’s revelations that night. In truth, they were shocked at such a powerful person in their midst. Someone who had perfected her casting skills in months rather than years. They were all impressed.

As Alice was welcomed home that night, she remarked, “Well, I think they want me”, and sank into Tony’s arms. He just held her for a long time, then served dinner.

Harry flopped onto their sofa, exhausted. It had been a long day. Draco had cooked the meal tonight and Harry inhaled Green curry and Thai rice.

Severus and Remus were still in their little cocoon of two. Severus cooked and Remus ate as he felt the effects of the chemo start to wear off. He was looking a little less skeletally thin and a peach fuzz had started to grow back on his head. As they lay on the sofa together after dinner watching TV, Severus had Remus leaning against him, back to chest. He ghosted his mouth across the short stubble. He noticed, too, that the stubble was almost completely iron grey. No brown or sandy tones. The last few months had aged Remus. There were a couple of new lines on his face and some of his eyelines had deepened. Though he watched as Remus enjoyed a comedy series that he’d been watching week by week, pitching about in Severus’ arms as he laughed, his eyes sparkling and his laugh big and genuine. Severus held on tighter and smiled. His Wolf was coming back to life slowly but surely. Severus closed his eyes resting his cheek in Remus’ stubble and breathed his man in, nuzzling the stubble with nose and lips until he was licking a delicate passionate path down his husband’s neck, peeling his dressing gown back and mapping a shoulder with his tongue. Remus groaned and flung his head back on Severus’ shoulder as that wicked tongue worked it’s magic. “Take me to bed, Sev. Make love to me. I want you”, he murmured as Severus’ mouth found his and he opened to him. They kissed long and deep, the urgency building, Severus clicked off the TV and led them to their bedroom, stopping them both for kisses all the way.

That night it was Severus who wore Remus like a cloak as they slept, grinning as sleep took him, he was going to have to lecture at the Bunker standing up, probably walking like someone who just fell of their horse. The thought made him chuckle as Remus kissed him goodnight and they slept twined together.