A Dark Time For The Light

92

The stress was starting to show on them all. Voldemort had had another of his ‘soirees’ to the distress of all who had the bottle to watch it. This time the ‘toys’ were a little older. This time one of them was recognised, Alicia Spinnet. Harry crumpled as he watched on Alice’s monitor. “She was in my Quidditch team at school”, Harry whispered, “She was in my house”, then he dissolved into sobs, no-one could bear to watch her defilement and Alice turned the monitor off quickly. The computer was a little slower powering down and a single scream could be heard before the machine switched off.

The only sounds to be heard for a while were barely suppressed sniffles from the people who had known this young woman, George, Ginny and Harry being the worst affected. Alice slid her arm around Harry, “I think we need to do this, hon, and do it soon. How many more must we see being used this way, hurt like this, die?”. Alice gathered him into her arms and rocked him, “This time, Harry, we have all the advantages. Think about it. We need to act, and soon”. Harry nodded against her shoulder. She handed him to Draco whose arms encircled him in a familiar warmth.

He sobbed loud and long that night, letting his grief out. It was late before both of them slept. The next morning, Draco woke to an empty bed and a note crackling under his questing hand,

Draco, love of my life,

I have taken the bike and Sev’s tent. I need to get my head ready for all of this. I love you more than life itself, but I have to do this. You cannot get in touch with me. I will be incommunicado for a few days. I love you and I will see you soon. I miss you already,

Your Harry. xxx

Draco was instantly speed-dialling and with a sinking heart heard the ringing of Harry’s phone from the living room. He peered down into the back yard, the bike was gone, as was Harry’s rucksack. He sunk his head in his hands and wept.

He was a mess when he arrived at work that morning and Jacinta took him to one side. Caroline had been deeply affected by the previous night’s show and Jacinta had had to send her home. She took one look at Draco and did the same. He refused, then showed her the note Harry had left him, “It’s going to happen soon, Jace, but I need to keep busy while he’s away. If I was at home, I’d just pace around and fret, but I may need some time off to actually do this thing. Harry’s boss has laid him off already. Christ, you should have seen what Caro and I saw last night. Rape and torture. We have to rid the world of this guy”, he crumbled and his boss threw her arms around him, “I would pledge a sword if I had one, Draco, but the project is fine at the moment. As you know youself, it’s mainly the scutwork until the main floor is replaced, so I hereby lay you off for at least the end of this month and all of next month, fuck, how ever long this takes, Draco, and you’ll still get your pay. Just be on the other end of the phone for emergencies, okay?”.

Draco hugged her hard, “Jacinta, you are amazing. I’ll carry on until Harry is back then I’ll go, agreed?”. Jacinta nodded and smiled, “How is Remus anyway, you haven’t mentioned him for ages, such a gentle person. I liked him”. They swapped some gossip then went to work. At the end of the day, Draco approached his boss and friend, “You know, if some of this was brought to my house, I could still do bits here and there, not be entirely unproductive”. Jacinta hugged him, “No, Draco, you are needed to fight. You say Harry has gone off for his forty days and forty nights in the desert?”. Draco looked concerned, “Merlin!. I hope it’s not forty days”. Jacinta smiled, “Sorry, Draco, Muggle religious reference, where the chief guy goes into the desert to meditate and pray. I reckon that’s what Harry is doing, getting his head together. He’ll either be a complete mess when he returns or deadly focussed. He’s in retreat right now and needs his solitude”. Draco nodded thoughtfully at this.

He called Alice that night, to get Tony on the phone, “Alice has buggered off to France for a few days on her old bus, she needs to get her head together. I dunno what she’s planning but she told me about the other night and I think whatever’s going to happen, will happen soon”. Draco thanked him and rang off. He called Sev next, “The two main players have disappeared for a while, the action will soon take place”. Severus enquired, “Are they together somewhere?”. Draco replied, “No, I don’t think so, I think they both saw the footage from the other night and decided we have to take action and soon, so the rest of us must be as ready as we can be”. The two men agreed and the call was terminated. Draco spent a restless and lonely night, the bed too big and cold without his Harry in it.

Work and lessons continued apace with Harry and Alice gone.

In the event, Alice was gone five days and Harry seven. Harry had found the glade that he and Sev had shared all that time ago. A peaceful place. A good place to camp and he had sat in silence by small fires and thought and thought.

Alice had sought out a secret glade of her own somewhere in Northern France and sat by a babbling brook for four days.

When Harry got tired of fried sausages and bacon, he knew it was time to head home. He unlocked the door as quietly as possible and snuck up the stairs into the flat. He quietly shed his riding gear on the landing, went to the loo and then crept into the silent bedroom. Draco had left a light on and was fast asleep, hugging a pillow. Harry undressed and slipped into bed, turning his lover towards him and relieving him of the pillow, threading his own arms around a sleeping Draco and pulling him close. “I’m back, my Dragon. I’m back”, then kissed his lover’s sleepy brow and slept.

Draco had the best awakening possible, going to sleep with a pillow clutched to him and waking with the real thing. A living, breathing, sleeping Harry back in his arms. He grinned like a loony and kissed every inch of flesh he could reach, though gently, so as not to wake his love, who smelt of open spaces and woodsmoke and bike oil and Harry and Harry and Harry, and Draco was totally intoxicated as his mouth found his lover again, and somewhere in the middle of the sleepy loving, Harry awoke and succumbed to mouth and fingers then let Draco take him and saw stars and galaxies as his nose buried into his lover’s neck and he inhaled his beloved as he came and came, then felt his beloved unravel and he was full and filled and sated and loved and tired, so bloody tired, and was held all day as he slept and they had another beautiful awakening later that afternoon, free to love, free to kiss, free to kill.

They were now both off the hook work-wise and both rolled around in it, waded in it, revelled in the new freedom and spent all day in bed loving each other, strengthening each other, preparing for the coming fight and clinging to each other in wanton desperation and fear.

Sunday, and Alice, with the help of Remus and Severus and the girls, cooked Sunday dinner in her Bunker and folk got to finally see the small room in the corner of her unit which turned out to be a more than adequate kitchen, a shower room and a storage area. She laid one of the large rugs borrowed from next door and created a long dining table from a handsome Art book, “No spilling gravy on the cover”, she quipped, then a set of high backed chairs, from a couple of cheap sets of Dickens. She cut up a couple of carrier bags and got plastic plates, “Sorry, I can’t do fine porcelain, chaps”, then shook out a box of staples and conjured a reasonable set of steel cutlery, “God, I love this practical Magic malarkey”, she commented.

The dinner guests consisted of Alice, Harry and Draco, Remus and Sev, the House, Poppy and Minerva and Hortense from the Guest House. Ron and Blaise were next. Dean arrived in his new car with Alastor with him. Rosmerta and Filius arrived in a taxi with Kingsley, now based in Liverpool for the main part, but in London to brush up neglected skills. Shortly afterwards they were joined by Narcissa and Jenny, which totalled twenty two in all. Alice glowed as she served the meal and was secretly glad that the chosen front line was consisting not just of the youngsters although she knew that Harry wanted others of his year and the DA from the other cadres.

After a delightful roast chicken dinner, the group got down to business as Draco and Harry cleared the table and set the dishes to wash Magically. Plans and blueprints were spread all over the table and the strategy session began.

As the babble grew louder, Alice called them all to order, “Ladies and Gents, the first thing to consider is how to get in and how to get out. I’m going to suggest something that may annoy some of you, but I have access to an excellent team of wheel-men, Mundanes all, who I trust to do something like this. I’ve trusted this crew for years. Harry and Draco have encountered them although we’ll need one more. Harry, would you see if your Irish mate would be interested, you said he wants to help. All he has to do is drive and wait. None of the Mundanes will be required beyond the wards. The rear line folk will have to get the injured and, erm, the dead, out, the Mundanes I plan to have driving five vans, that should just about fit all of us in. The vans as usual will carry false plates. I want Steffie, Lars, Heike, Danny and whassisname, Cellan is it?, for the drivers. Each of you will be assigned to a driver and will know where to run to and the exit point to reach them”.

She then laid out a detailed schematic of the house of Voldemort. “We will have to re-visit the site just prior to see if any alarms etcetera have been put in place since you were all last there, and Alastor, we need you to re-dowse the place again, if you would, for signatures, anti-Apparation wards and recognition wards and the like”. Alastor grunted his assent. “Hermione, we will definitely need you along on this, love. This original schematic doesn’t list the types of locks used around the place and we could do with you going in on a recce. Can you cope with doing that?”. Hermione huffed out a long breath, “Whoa, that’s a bit risky. I might be seen. There’s always someone about the place these days. Shit, Harry, what I wouldn’t give for your old Invisibility Cloak”.

Harry grinned, “It’s buried in a box in Aunt Marge’s garden. I still have it, it was in my robes when you Apparated me out, Sev”. Alice was gobsmacked, “You seriously have a cloak that makes you invisible?”. Both Draco and Harry blushed, sharing looks. Severus rolled his eyes. “Harry and Draco broke many school rules to be together, usually involving that damned cloak”. Alice interjected, “Sounds like a jolly useful piece of kit to me. Can you get it from this Aunt, Harry?”. Harry looked down then raised his eyes as he felt a light breeze in his head, “We can always do this in the middle of the night or something, Harry, a sneak attack, the dog could be a problem, though”.

“Bollocks, Alice. I wish you wouldn’t do that. It’s bloody unnerving”. She held up her hands, palms outwards, “Sorry, sorry”. Harry grinned, “No, I should go and see her. She was good to me when I least expected it. I owe her a visit. She gave me the box to bury my stuff in, my school robes, my invisibility cloak, and my Gringott’s key. I should get them back. I sent her cheques for the money she lent me but she never put them in her bank. I’ll give her a ring”.

They then went on to discuss movements. Alice turned on her computer and called up her strategies laid over the blueprints, “Now, you put no cameras or microphones in the basement of the house”. Hermione shook her head, “The project manager was keeping a sharp eye on all the teams, and we weren’t contracted to do anything in the basement. I did the best I could”, she finished, a touch defensively. Alice reached over and grasped her hand a moment, “You did a fucking brilliant job, lass, I’m not blaming you, just stating a fact”. Hermione blushed and apologised, “You’re right, there’s no surveillance cover in the basement”, she stood, using her wand as a pointer, “But there’s an outside entrance marked here”, she pointed, “Plus windows, here, here and here. The sort that have a half grille, solid steel to prevent access, the windows themselves are sashes and look solidly gunged up unless they’ve been cleaned up in the meanwhile”. Alice smiled, “Noted”.

“We need you, Alastor. Ron helped me to plot one Apparation point in the grounds but there was at least one other and we need to read all that are there. Can we block them in any way?”. Alastor revolved his eye at her, “Aye, we can, but it takes a little time to disable one”. They all pondered, Blaise made the next contribution, “It depends how many we decide to take on, Death-Eaters I mean. Do we let him send out a distress call once we’re in and deal with as many as possible, or do we isolate him and risk there being another who steps into his shoes?”. All were thoughtful. Remus murmured, “Good point, Blaise”. Severus smiled, “Ten points to Slytherin”, which lightened the mood and sent a ripple of mirth around the table.

“How quickly after he’s activated the Mark are people expected to appear?”, a shrewd question from Alice directed at Severus and Narcissa. “After half an hour or so. Or he sends pure hell through the Mark”, Narcissa replied. “So if he sends out a summons, people will appear piecemeal over the next half hour or so?”. Severus shrugged, “Depends on the urgency of the Summons. If it’s really ‘loud’ then folk may all appear almost at once, not able to withstand the pain in their Marks”. Alice thought hard, “Does this mean he could compromise you two?”. The two answers came simultaneously. “Possibly” and a sharp “No”, from Severus. Narcissa bowed her head, “He has not tested my resolve yet, although I expect it daily”. All appreciated her honesty. Draco reached a hand out to his mother and squeezed her arm, smiling.

Alice was making notes as was Hermione as people talked. Unbeknownst to each other, they were placing the gathered company into front line and backup troops, making lists. When they compared them later, they were virtually identical.

They next went on to the methods and means of entry, but couldn’t do much planning until the security system had been sussed out. Harry grinned, “Have you ever used the Cloak?”. Hermione rolled her eyes, “You never let anyone near it, either that or your Map”. Harry blushed, “Sorry, I needed it all the time, you know”, he glanced at Draco, who added, “We found places that no-one had seen in hundreds of years”, then dipped his head, his face colouring.

“Yes, well. The cloak would be handy to get me in unobserved, particularly if he is getting careless and complacent”. Harry reached over and hugged his outlaw best friend, proud of her and her abilities much to Ginny’s silent chagrin, but she tried valiantly not to show it. Hermione saw the control that her girlfriend exhibited and turned, taking her into her arms, “You know this is for the good of the cause. People are going to depend on these skills, just like Remus and Sev did?”. Ginny nodded, then hugged her beloved hard, “I wish it could be otherwise, but what do you need me to do?”

“Just be there for me baby, fight beside me, and love me still when all this is over, whatever I have to do”.