A Dark Time For The Light

91

“Remus, you were in Liverpool. Did you ever contact the folk under Lime Street station?. Only, in all that happened after that last meeting of Voldie’s, we overlooked the possible situation up there”. The man nodded. “I called the cadre in the caves and one or two have sought to make contact, then they asked Tonks to go up there. Apparently the folk under the station are Mundane squatters that organise illegal street parties and something called, ‘Reclaim the Streets’, some sort of protest group or other and I asked her to warn them to be careful. I also warned the cadre of any sudden appearances of a stray cat”.

Alice nodded, appeased. There were quite a few trained Magicals sitting togather in Bunker 7 relaxing after a hard day’s classes and awaiting the evening group and all were enjoying a picnic style dinner. Remus wasn’t fit enough to teach yet, but he had started to attend the refresher sessions and sit in on some of the training sessions as well as marking most of the essays that folk still turned in. Harry had wanted to turn the curriculum to one entirely composed of weapons and strategy training, but he had been overruled, “Harry, these people need the wider structure,”, Hermione had reasoned, “Not to be just used by us as possible cannon fodder. Magic is for life, Harry, not just for war”. He conceded, but he was getting antsy.

It was Joe who suggested a possible solution. He called Harry into the site office at the end of a working week. “Harry, I’m going to give you leave of absence”. He held his hand up at Harry’s protestations, “No, Harry, hear me out. I’m not sacking you. I’m just laying you off for a while, until you’ve, erm, completed the Mission. You’re working too hard, here all day, then teaching at night and weekends. You’re tired, Harry, I can see it in your face. I can’t afford to pay you, but I believe you are not without resources of your own. Go and do this, Harry, for all of us, and come the time, if you need the other lads with you, Dean, Seamus, Ron, then we’ll work around it all. Me, Cellan and Steffie too. Please, Harry. You need your strength for this battle and a weary general is one who makes mistakes. I promise you that your job will still be here, you know, after everything. Now go, and I’ll see you at classes”. He pulled the boy to him for a hug, then let him go. He staggered out to the van and dropped wearily into his seat as Cellan peeled out of the car park.

Harry tipped into Bunker 7 that night to find the usual suspects there.

They were now using Alice’s bunker as well for the theory and history classes and Filius Flitwick was giving his usual subject of Charms a rest and was leading a class on ancient runes and symbols drawing them on the whiteboard that Alice had provided and his class diligently copying them down. Caroline was bent over her work, the tip of her tongue sticking out, concentrating hard using a Japanese brush and black ink, George at her side, gazing mainly at her rather than the work, stealing the odd kiss as Flitwick’s back was turned.

In Bunker 7 things were much livelier. This was a strictly of-age group only and only those demi’s with the highest levels of Magic in attendance with Remus and Severus teaching. Tonight they were starting to learn to Apparate and Alice was most surprised to see Harry, Hermione, Seamus and Ginny in the class. Seamus leaned in and murmured, “We were all under-age when everythin’ went tits-up and we didn’t get our licences”. Alice mouthed an ‘O’ then went back to concentrating on Remus.

They cleared the Bunker’s floor and they all helped to unroll two large rugs, one in one corner of the space, the other in the corner opposite. The pupils were all told to memorise the patterning in the carpets, not too intricate and easy to fix on in the mind’e eye. Remus had Seamus and Harry demonstrate for the class as he knew both boys could actually apparate but they didn’t have licences. Poppy Pomfrey sat to one edge of the room, her large carpet-bag at her feet. “Now Apparating is a very strong Magic and leaves a very traceable signature behind it, you have to know exactly where to touch down and concentrate hard on your destination. We don’t want splinching, which to the uninitiated is the leaving of bits of you behind. Like Mundane driving, Apparation is jolly dangerous, only you’re more likely to do yourself a mischief than harm another person. There are three ‘D’s, determination, destination and deliberation. If you are not determined enough then you run a risk of being splinched. Shall we begin?”

He stepped to the side and Harry stepped up. He thought hard about the blue square on the rug opposite and pointed his wand at himself, his eyes closed and promptly vanished reappearing across the room and falling on his backside a split-second later. He leapt to his feet, “Whoo-hoo”, he punched a fist in the air. Severus smirked, “You may wish to think a little harder about landing, Mr Potter”, he drawled and Harry just stuck his tongue out and grinned, “Cheeky bloody whelp”, the man murmured. Seamus leaned to Alice again, “If he’d’a done that at school, he’d be cleanin’ yak-vomit outta the cauldrons for a month with a toothbrush”. Alice wrinkled her nose and hid a laugh behind her hand.

All the fully trained Magicals had a few goes, then Severus demonstrated his flawless technique, landing gracefully on the balls of his feet twirling in place and bowed to the class to applause. Alice stepped up to take a go. She relaxed her shoulders, cleared her mind of everything but the small red circle that she was aiming for. She could see the uneven weave, a single pulled thread, the smudge of dirt. Her mind mantra’d her determination. She touched her wand to her chest, and, nothing.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight and saw nothing but the little red circle, her body quivered with intent. She touched her chest with the tip of her wand again. There was a lurch in her stomach then something hit her head with a violent crack and the room went black.

Alice came round to find Remus and Poppy leaning over her. Poppy had her wand to Alice’s head and was muttering a healing spell. Remus grinned at her, “You’ll live. You overshot a bit”. Alice tried to sit up and the room swam back into focus, “What hit me?”. “The wall. You fell as you landed and hit your head”. “Landed?”. Her eyes cleared, she was in the far corner of the room. “I did it. I really did it. Oh wow”, she murmured. Poppy made her look up then shone a light into her eyes, “Just a nasty bump. No concussion. But I don’t reccomend that you try again tonight”. Alice nodded, feeling woozy as Remus helped her to stand. He led her back to the others, “That was an excellent first attempt. Well done”. He helped her outside. She slumped down to the ground and lit a cigarette with shaky hands. “I’ve always wanted to teleport”. Remus was puzzled, “Oh, Mundane terminology for the same thing, used in Science Fiction novels everywhere”.

Back in the Bunker and people were popping in and out of space-time. Ginny was so fast, she made a ‘crack’ as she disapparated and landed squarely on her feet. In an instant, she was back at this end of the room and bowed to cheers. She went and sat beside Alice. “You’re good at this. Too bad you never got your licence”. Ginny smiled, “Fred taught me between fifth and lower sixth year. Totally illegal of course, but he was always the better Apparator. George was always falling flat on his face, bless him”. Alice kept her voice low, “You know, when we, erm, do this thing, you know, kill Voldemort, you may have to be confronted with your elder brother, you may even have to kill him yourself. Your magic is good and strong. I’m sure Harry will want to put you in the front lines of fighters. How do you feel about that?”.

Ginny looked at the ground and fiddled with the toe of her shoe, then turned to look Alice in the eye and tapped her forehead with a finger, “It’s complicated. Here, feel free”. Alice took the girl’s chin in her hand and sifted quickly through her thoughts. “I see, much as you despise the bastard, he is still family and you have lost so many of you. I didn’t know that George was half of twins. No wonder he was so devastated when Fred was killed. And, yes, if you ask her to marry you, I think she’ll say yes in a heartbeat. She loves you with such a passion. Whoops. I really must learn to discriminate. Somehow it’s easier to leave Sev and Harry with their privacy intact, sorry. My own skills can’t sort it all out yet, you know, just to get the answers I want without traipsing around stuff folk would rather I didn’t see. I didn’t mean to pry”.

Ginny was amazed, “It feels like a wind in my head, blowing my thoughts around like pieces of parchment and you saw all this in, like, nano-seconds. That’s astonishing. I’m impressed”. Alice smiled, “Thank you, but sometimes it feels more like a curse than a gift, but I suppose it is how I’ve always been able to read situations, especially illegal ones. You have to operate completely on your wits to be a good outlaw. I sense a definite kinship between myself and Hermione, I must admit, and I read your distaste at her extra-curricular activities”. Ginny dipped her head, “I shouldn’t moan and she really is straightening out in other ways, she has quite a few book-keeping clients now”.

Alice shook her head, “That girl thrives on challenge, I’m sure book-keeping makes her a nice income now she’s got going a bit, but it’s not really her. She needs to be learning again. Maybe go back to university. She can take all of her ‘A’ levels on-line. I got English literature only last year”. Alice cast a glance at the pretty red-head, “And if she’s learning then she isn’t plotting nefarious activities. A brain like that needs to be used. Just a thought”. Ginny stood and turned back to the older woman, “Thanks for that, Alice, I’ll bear it in mind. Now I’m going to have another go before the class ends”. They smiled briefly and Ginny wandered back to the others deep in thought.

Alice still had a bit of a headache as she was locking Bunker 8 for the night. She had Apparated! Wait ‘til she told Tony. She rang a taxi to take her home and slept most of the way.

Later that night, Ginny was sitting in front of the computer looking at a range of on-line courses, GCSE’s and ‘A’ levels. Hermione came up behind her and kissed her on the top of the head, “What are you looking at, sweetheart?”. Ginny turned and kissed her as she slid in beside her on the bench. “A way to finish my education”, she said ingenuously. “You can do these on-line. I don’t want to work in a record shop all of my life and you need these qualifications to get into University”. Hermione wrapped her arms around her, “I’d love to go back to Uni, but this time with the proper quals. There was so much I didn’t know. Are these courses expensive?” Ginny smiled into her lover’s eyes, “We can afford it, baby, that’s why I didn’t want to go too mad with the money Draco’s given me, so we can do things to advance ourselves, get an education even if we have to pay, start a business, you know?”.

Hermione took Ginny’s face between her palms and kissed her thoroughly, then ran a hand down her lover’s body and lifted her long legs across her lap and twined her arms around her, not breaking the contact of mouths and tongues. When they emerged for air, Hermione gasped, “I want to go back to school when this is all over”. Ginny nibbled her lover’s ear and slid her tongue along her neck, “Then you shall, my love, you shall”. She ran a hand up inside Hermione’s t-shirt, feeling the taut stomach, the ribs, then cupping a full heavy naked breast. “Oh, Merlin, no bra”, in a second she had pushed Hermione’s t-shirt up and had her tongue tracing lightly around the nipple. Hermione arched into the touch and when Ginny started to suck gently, she moaned.

In short order, Ginny had Hermione spread back along the bench, her jeans around her knees and her tongue in her snatch, then Ginny paused to remove Hermione’s jeans completely, then spread her wide and dived in again with fingers and tongue, making her beloved arch off the bench as she tried not to fall off.
They completely missed the knock, the head peeping round, the diffident, “Girls, can we use the compu-ah, perhaps not” and the quiet closing of the door again.

In moments, Ginny could feel Hermione clenching around her fingers as she sucked gently on her clit. Hermione stuffed her knuckles in her mouth to stifle her ecstatic moans, then sat up as the last of her orgasm died away. Hermione kissed slowly, Ginny’s was still heated, then Hermione pushed Ginny over with a single finger and removed her clothes kissing every square inch of skin. For such small boobs, her lover had incredible nipples which Hermione feasted on as she spread her and began to finger her wet folds. She laid a tongue trail all the way to the pubic hair, then dived into that wetness with passion, she nudged a stiff thumb just beneath her clit, pushed two fingers into Ginny’s wet cunt and wetting a third finger from all the moisture, pushed it up her arse. Ginny shouted and pushed against the multiple penetration, then Hermione’s tongue started to circle her engorged clit and Ginny nearly fell off the bench, her head already hanging off the end. She pushed hard, once, twice and came with a loud moan riding that talented hand and tongue. Somehow they closed the computer down and poured into bed.

And Ginny still didn’t find the courage to ask.