Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Moments in Love	By : Gandalfs-Beard Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Harry/Hermione Views: 175861 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 14
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. All rights belong to Rowling. Nor do I make any money from the story.

Chapter List
- 70
- 71
- 72
A Night on the Town

It took a few minutes for the Potters to find their friends on the crowded dancefloor, but there were three missing.
“Where’s Ginny, Luna, and Parvati?” Harry asked Dora, feeling agitated as he glanced at Fleur, Jennifer, and Daphne. “Have any of you seen them?”
All four shook their heads, but an antlered girl dancing nearby with her even more impressively horned boyfriend had overheard.
“They left the Hall about ten minutes ago,” said Lavender.
“I think zey go to find ‘broom closet’...” Viktor added pointedly with a grin and a wink, earning himself a roll of eyes and a swat on the shoulder from Lavender.
“Crap!” Harry groaned. “We’ve got to get out of here now! Any idea which direction they...?”
Hermione raised her eyebrows at Harry as she retrieved her mirror from her handbag and waved it at him. Harry flushed slightly as he watched Hermione speaking into the mirror. Seconds later they spied the disheveled blushing features of Parvati, Luna, and Ginny in the mirror as they smoothed their rumpled dresses.
“Shouldn’t we get changed?” asked Parvati, sounding slightly out of breath as the Coven met in the Entrance Hall.
“No time,” said Harry, trying to ignore Parvati’s anxiously twitching cat-tail. “It’s urgent. We need to get to the gates so we can apparate...”
“...McGonagall told us where to go.” Hermione added, her own bushy tail and ears wagging in agitation as she grabbed coats and wellington boots for everyone from a wardrobe to the right of the front-doors. “Just throw these on for now.”
The Coven - all still “in costume” - hurried as fast as they could through the snowdrifts down to the front gates. Fortunately for Daphne and Jennifer, the spare coats from the wardrobe magically adjusted to accommodate their butterfly wings. Harry considered morphing away his own furry tail and ears, but decided against it, feeling that it would be unfair as he hadn’t given anyone time to be un-transfigured.
Once through the gates everyone turned on the spot with the address that Moody had given McGonagall firmly in mind. Nine loud cracks later and the woods beyond the the gates of Hogwarts were still and silent once more.

~o0o~
Hermione shrieked, her bushy tail bristling. She slipped in the slush under her feet and fell into Harry’s arms, almost taking him down with her. Daphne froze in her tracks, her gossamer wings aflutter, and Jennifer instinctively wrapped a protective arm around her.
“Merlin!” Dora swore.
“Bloody Hell!” gasped Harry, paling, his eyes boggling at the horrific mayhem which greeted the Coven.
Lightning lit up the dark road lined with oak trees and they were quickly drenched by the pelting sleet, thunder drowning out the sound of their apparition. For a moment the entire Coven stood paralysed, taken aback by the chaotic scene, mouths agape. Their stomachs churned as their nostrils were assailed by the unbearable stench of death.
The screams of muggles rent the air as they were dragged from their homes through broken doors and windows by the hordes of moaning Undead. Spells crackled and sparked as the wizards did their best to defend themselves and the non-magical residents of the neighbourhood from the lurching corpses. Some of the wizards were grabbing muggles and apparating them to safety, returning moments later to the battle.
But for every lurching corpse which was disintegrated or exploded by a spell, ten more seemed to take its place. And despite the best efforts of the Wizards, some of the living had already fallen - magical and non-magical alike - as the Inferi feasted upon them, blood dripping from their maws.
There were too many, and it was hard to make out who was whom in the chaos.
“Harry, look...” squealed Hermione. Parvati clapped a hand to her mouth, stifling a scream.
The rest of the Coven peered down the slight incline in the direction that Hermione was pointing, gasping at the unthinkable, terrifying sight. Two wizards very dear to the Coven appeared to be faltering, surrounded by an overwhelming mass of Inferi.
Sirius was kneeling in a puddle, holding tightly onto a pale and shaking Dumbledore. Harry’s chest tightened with fear when he saw the torn flesh hanging from the headmaster’s right arm, blood gushing from the ragged wound which appeared to have been caused by ripping teeth. Sirius fired a Reductor into the midst of the inferi bearing down upon them.
“Leave me Sirius...” Dumbledore gasped, “...before it’s too late. I shall become one of the Inferi myself before too long - kill me now before I do...”
“Don’t be ridiculous - there must be a way to break the curse...” Sirius snapped as he blasted a hole in the group of Inferi with a Bombarda.
But the concussive explosion merely sent the Undead flying. Undaunted by shattered limbs, those that could still crawl dragged themselves through the deepening puddles and piles of slush; those with legs which remained unbroken picked themselves up, and those still standing were already closing ranks around Sirius and Dumbledore.
“NOOOOO!” screamed Harry.
Tears poured down Hermione’s white cheeks. The Coven didn’t need to be told what to do. Propelled into action by the sound of Harry’s voice, they huddled together and raised their wands - each of them gasping for breath, hearts thudding against the walls of their chests.
“EXPECTO PATRONUM!” they bellowed as one.
Pulses of blinding white light flooded the entire street. The groans and death rattles of the Inferi turned into shrieks as nine glowing entities bounded and flew into the fray. Sparks and flame burst from the eye-sockets and mouths of all the walking dead within the radius of the throbbing illumination. Shimmering rainbows formed by the scattered light rippled through the beaded curtains of snowy rain.
Stunned wizards and witches, and astonished muggles blinked, holding up their hands to shield their eyes, puzzled as the swarming, shrieking Inferi halted in their tracks and trembled. Only the few wizards who had been at the battle of Hogwarts had any inkling of what was occurring.
The Potters had apparently just arrived, seemingly the only ones to have mastered the Secret Weapon that Dumbledore had presumably created.
The shocked wizards and muggles looked on as best they could while shading their faces; the flesh of the Walking Dead shriveled and blackened. Steam rose from the internally combusting Inferi as they turned into cinders, and hundreds of skeletons collapsed into heaps as the ash mingled with sleet and washed away in the icy puddles.
Then it was over, and for a moment all that could be heard was the heavy thrum of falling rain and snow - and sirens in the distance - as the pulses of light faded and the street darkened once more. Hearts pounding, Harry and Hermione dashed and slid through the puddles and piles of slush to where Sirius was still cradling the fallen Dumbledore, followed closely by the rest of the Coven.
“Professor Dumbledore,” gasped Harry, kneeling at the headmaster’s side and peering at him through blurry eyes, “Sir... your arm - the Inferi...?”
“Are ‘contagious’... yes Harry,” Dumbledore nodded sadly. “I am afraid that I have little time left. You must finish me...”
“No... Sir! There must be another way...”
“Harry, please...” Dumbledore’s soft pleading voice was a more terrifying sound than anything Harry had heard before - and that was saying a lot.
For a moment Harry felt almost as if he were back in the tiny Welsh village, faced with putting down the little Inferi girl who had looked so much like a young Hermione.
Harry felt the world spinning, closing in around him, his breath quickening, a deep chill in his bones as if Dementors were wrapping him in their deathly embrace. It couldn’t end this way; Dumbledore was the closest thing Harry had to a grandparent. Pushing a forefinger and thumb under his wet glasses, Harry rubbed his stinging eyes and peered at Sirius.
Sirius cast his eyes down, unable to meet his godson’s as he had reached the same regrettable conclusion as Dumbledore. Harry looked at Hermione imploringly. She had to have an answer. Hermione always had an answer.
“Hermione,” he croaked hopefully. The rest of the Coven shuffled uncomfortably, averting their gazes as splodges of soggy snow collected on their shoulders and dripping hair.
“No,” said Hermione gently, a puzzled expression on her face as her wet furry ears twitched pensively as she looked over Dumbledore.
Harry’s heart fell. If Dumbledore and Hermione both thought it was over, then it was really over; but there was no way that Harry could bring himself to be the one, and he hoped that Sirius would be up to the task.
Hermione suddenly caught Harry’s expression and realised that he had taken her the wrong way.
“I mean, no, it won’t be necessary to kill Dumbledore, Harry,” she said quickly.
“Mrs Potter - you must...” Dumbledore interjected. Harry’s breath caught, feeling a new surge of hope.
“No!” Hermione repeated, more forcefully. “Professor Dumbledore, If you had been overtaken by the Inferius Curse completely, you would be dead... a pile of bones and ash like the others. But instead - look at your arm...”
Everyone peered at Dumbledore’s mangled arm. Moments before it had been bloody torn skin and muscle, but now it was as withered as a mummy’s, and as scorched as a tree-limb exposed to a forest fire before the flames had been put out. Dumbledore lifted his arm and stiffly flexed his charred, nearly skeletal fingers in astonishment.
Fleur gasped as understanding hit her and she caught Hermione’s eye. Hermione nodded as the others glanced at her in bewilderment.
“I... I’m not entirely certain,” Hermione continued, flicking her bedraggled furry tail, “but I think our Patronuses prevented the Inferius Curse from spreading and taking you over. They broke the Curse... I don’t think you’re going to die and become one, Professor Dumbledore.”
“Blimey!” Harry muttered, his eyes widening. “Of course Hermione! That makes perfect sense...”
“Can... can it be true?” Sirius glanced hopefully at Hermione, then returned his gaze to Dumbledore.
Dumbledore stroked his soggy blood stained beard thoughtfully with his good hand as he continued to peer at his bad one. Slowly he nodded.
“I do believe Mrs Potter is correct, Sirius.” Dumbledore’s eyes lit up. “If so, then any others on this street who have also been bitten, may yet live to see another day as well...”
“But not for bloody long if we don’t get a move on,” growled a familiar voice.
“Wotcher Mad Eye!” Dora beamed at the grizzled ex-Auror limping towards them.
“The job’s not done yet,” muttered Alastor Moody. “Puddleby is completely overrun by the buggers. If we don’t stop ‘em quick, every man, woman, and child in this town will soon be dead...”
Harry looked past Moody when he heard fast-paced footsteps splashing through snowy puddles in the road, spying several wizards running towards them. Two of them he recognised, but the one with dreadlocks who appeared to be in his early or mid twenties was unknown to him. Arthur Weasley grimaced and his son Bill let out a low whistle when they spotted the state of Dumbledore’s shriveled and blackened leathery right arm.
“That looks nasty,” said Bill as he winced, wiping the wet strands of his long ginger hair from his face which had broken free of his ponytail.
“Quite,” said Dumbledore drily as Sirius helped him stagger to his feet. “Nevertheless, it appears that the Inferius Curse has been broken before it had a chance to overcome me, and that I shall live - thanks to the remarkable Patronuses produced by our young friends.”
Dumbledore beamed at his students, peering at each and every one of them knowingly. Dora turned pink when she saw the look in Dumbledore’s eye, reminding her horribly of the look her father had given her when he and her mother had assumed that she and Fleur were having orgies with the Potters.
Harry swallowed, feeling a bit disconcerted, having thought it was going to remain a secret. He supposed that too many wizards had got a good look at their Corporeal Patronuses though. And as Dumbledore caught his eye, there was something about Dumbledore’s gaze... He knew!
Harry didn’t know how Dumbledore had figured it out, but somehow Dumbledore knew they were a Coven.
The dreadlocked wizard’s jaw dropped in astonishment, and Alastor Moody’s natural eye widened to nearly the same size as his piercing electric blue magical eye.
“What?” gasped Mr Weasley. “Those were Patronuses then? But how...?”
“That’s impossible... isn’t it?” said Bill, frowning with bewilderment. “I’ve never heard of a Patronus breaking any sort of curse, especially not an Inferius Curse. And I’ve broken more than a few curses in my time working for Gringotts...”
“Not eempossible, no...” began Fleur excitedly, “Our Patroni, zey ‘ave much power...” She caught herself and trailed off, suddenly thinking better of revealing too much.
Harry glanced at Hermione who looked equally anxious, neither of them sure what to say. He caught Dumbledore’s eye again, and the headmaster shook his head slightly. Harry felt some relief, knowing that Dumbledore would at least keep the Coven’s status a secret.
“Ah...” said Dumbledore, “suffice it to say that the Potters and their friends are quite prodigious with the Patronus Charm, having apparently discovered unusual effects through great practice and experimentation...
“Even I was unaware of their full potential for defeating Inferi before Voldemort’s forces attacked Hogwarts. And this particular effect of countering the spread of the Contagious Inferius Curse is certainly new to me - to all of us - as was Bellatrix Lestrange’s recent modification of Inferi to pass on their curse to the Living itself...”
Dumbledore looked directly at the wizard that the Coven was unacquainted with and raised his eyebrows as he continued, “Mr Chambers, I trust that you will keep this information to yourself for now. Only myself and those members of the Order of the Phoenix which you see before you are currently aware of the extent of the rare abilities of my students. I believe it would be to our advantage if it were to remain so as long as possible.”
“Y...yes sir. Of course!” stammered Mr Chambers as he nodded. “I understand.”
“Right then...” growled Moody, finally finding his voice as his penetrating eye swiveled to peer at the Coven. “Well, secret or not, we’re gonna have to put the Potters and their friends to work. There’s no time for us to stand around jawin’...”
And indeed, the sound of spells could be heard crackling as wizards at the far end of the street began engaging with the Inferi which were swarming through the rest of Puddleby. Harry took a deep breath to brace himself; he knew exactly what they needed to do.
“Okay, we need to get to the highest point in town,” said Harry, “hopefully somewhere that we can see most of it. If we can, we should be able to deal with most of the Inferi, leaving the stragglers for the rest of you to pick off.”
“Very good Harry.” Dumbledore nodded. “A wise course of action...”
“I know just the place,” said Mr Chambers. “An office building downtown - it’s the tallest one - you should be able to see most of the town from the roof. But if you don’t know Puddleby, you won’t be able to apparate there directly. I’ll have to take you.”
“Er... alright then!” Harry agreed. “Thanks Mr Chambers...”
“Joseph...” The dreadlocked wizard offered Harry his hand. “Call me Joseph, please... All of you. I can’t thank you enough for coming!”
“Well... you can thank us when we’re finished, Joseph,” said Harry, shaking his hand. “We’d better get on with it and try to save as many as possible.”
Joseph quickly shook the hands of the others, before coming to someone he thought he recognised. He looked a bit puzzled as he tried to place her.
“Er... hi,” said Dora when she shook the familiar looking wizard’s hand. “Tonks - I was in Hufflepuff... I think you mighta been a year or two ahead of me.”
“Oh! Right.” Joseph nodded. “Ravenclaw...”
There was a snort and everyone glanced at Mad Eye, feeling slightly abashed.
“We’d better get a move on,” said Harry quickly.
Bill Weasley clapped his father on the shoulder. “I’ll go with them too, Dad...”
“Harry, Mrs Potter...” Dumbledore caught their attention. “Stay in contact with the mirrors - and good luck!”
Harry nodded, feeling a lump in his throat, then turned to make his way down the road. As the Coven followed after Joseph and Bill, stepping around piles of inert skeletons, in the flickers of lightning they spied a number of people, some of them openly weeping, seeing to the wounded - fallen wizards and muggles whose injuries now looked much like Dumbledore’s.
Some had clearly been too badly injured to survive, though the Inferius Curse had been broken before they could be reanimated. Joseph darted to where his wife and mum were standing with some muggle children, still in shock, and quickly explained that he would be escorting the Potters and their friends. He seemed to be arguing with his wife.
“I told you not to make promises...” Harry overheard Joseph’s wife say.
“Come with me then,” pleaded Joseph.
His wife shook her head. “I’m needed here...”
Harry took the opportunity for one last instruction to the Coven, glancing around at Hermione, Dora, Jennifer, Fleur, Daphne, Parvati, Ginny, and Luna, as Bill Weasley looked on.
“Okay,” he said quietly, just loud enough to be heard over the sleet and claps of thunder, “if we’re going to try and keep most people guessing about the spell we’re using, we’ll have to do it nonverbally. We’ve practiced it, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Just watch me for the cue.”
Ginny swallowed anxiously, her bushy red fox tail quivering. She had got used to casting spells with the others as a Coven, but she had the least amount of practice doing it nonverbally.
“You’ll be fine,” Luna whispered, seeing Ginny’s nervousness.
“Got it Harry,” said Dora with a crisp nod.
“We’re ready Harry.” Hermione gave him a wan smile and a shake of her sodden tawny tail as the rest of the snowy, wet Coven murmured their acknowledgment.
“I know you are.” Harry returned her sad little smile, and gave everybody one last look of encouragement. “You’re all brilliant!”
The Coven reached the end of the street where the battle still raged; a phalanx of Order members, locals, and French wizards holding the line against the Inferi. Bill directed the fighting wizards to be prepared to move through the town when the crossroad had been cleared.
Fleur beamed and waved at a young French wizard with closely cropped hair and one earring. Dora raised an eyebrow and smirked when he blew a kiss at Fleur. Fleur blushed and gave Dora a reassuring squeeze.
The throng of groaning corpses in various states of decay lurched and surged, as the Order and the French wizards continued to heavily favour the Reductor curse, unwilling as they were to set the entire town ablaze with firestorm spells, which might not even be effective enough given the continuing downpour of sleet in any case.
Harry took a deep breath to brace himself, then lifted his left hand and gestured a count of three as he raised his wand with his right hand. The rest of the Coven gathered around him in close formation and raised their wands; Harry’s last finger unfurled on the third count, and a pulsating blaze of dazzling white light erupted, filling the crossroad, swallowing up the nine glowing entities which charged into the midst of the swarm of Undead.
The moans of several hundred Inferi became screams as their decaying flesh combusted and turned to ash. The French wizards and witches, locals, and Order members who were less than familiar with the Hogwarts students blinked, many shielding their eyes as they tried with difficulty to make out what was happening in the shining flare of light, frank expressions of awe and surprise on their faces.
When the last Inferius within the radius of the pulses of luminosity collapsed into heaps of bones and skulls, the light faded and the wizards and witches began to move out, dividing into smaller teams as they spread out through the town.
“This way...” shouted Joseph as he ran, trying to avoid stepping on skulls and tripping over femurs. Bill and the Coven followed, keeping an eye out for more Inferi as they jogged along the street as quickly as they could, trying not to slip on the patches of half iced over puddles and slush.
With Joseph and Bill, the Coven shot their own Reductor spells at random Inferi as they hurried through the town. Daphne, Hermione, and Luna gave Harry beseeching looks when they heard the screams of muggles, the wail of police sirens and loud reports of gunfire from the side streets.
They stopped once or twice to set their Patronuses loose on the most concentrated knots of the lurching corpses which they came across, but Harry’s and Dora’s grim looks reminded the rest of the Coven that the entire town was at stake, and that they needed to get to high ground as soon as possible to make the most of their skills.
Soon, the quaint houses and picturesque buildings which made up much of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh gave way to those which looked more modern, and they knew that downtown was very close. Breathing heavily from exertion and trepidation, they were almost grateful for the icy water dripping from their hair and faces. But their hearts fell when they came across a traffic jam at an intersection.
A Tesco supply lorry lay overturned in the middle as traffic lights turned from red to green and back again, surrounded by the twisted metal of mangled cars smashed together in a pileup, some of them still emitting sparks and smoke. At least one of them which had apparently exploded was now a burned out husk of steel.
Lights continued to spin and flash on the roofs of several Police cars, a Fire Engine and an Ambulance with broken windows as their wailing sirens and the rasping groaning sound of the throng of Undead filled the air.
Hundreds of Inferi swarmed around the vehicles gnawing on the limbs and gory entrails that they had torn from the recently Living, fresh blood dripping from their hungry mouths. There didn’t seem to be anyone left alive in the intersection, only animated corpses with peeling and rotting grey flesh.
Daphne briefly looked away from the horrid, gruesome sight and bit her lip in an effort to stop herself from crying. Hermione’s soaked tail bristled as angry tears flooded her cheeks. Harry squeezed her hand and squashed his own rage to keep himself together. Once more the Coven raised their wands and Bill and Joseph protected their eyes from the blindingly bright luminescence which ripped through the Inferi Horde.
They cautiously picked their way through the block which had just been cleared by their Patroni, past storefronts with brightly flashing red and yellow neon signs and shattered windows - past the Tesco where the overturned lorry in the intersection had recently unloaded its wares. There wasn’t a single person in sight except for the skeletons which now lay unmoving in the slushy snow and the puddles.
If it weren’t for the continued sound of wailing sirens, the snowy rain beating the pavement, burbling gutters fall of rushing water, and the occasional peal of heavy thunder, the streets would have been otherwise silent, and the stillness of the urban setting was unnerving.
Harry desperately hoped that the people living in the flats above the shops had managed to barricade themselves inside their homes.
Finally, after taking out another swarm of Inferi and passing through another block of buildings built in the late 1970’s before the National Trust had waged a successful campaign to halt the tearing down of Puddleby’s historical architecture, Joseph pointed to a building a fair bit taller than the rest. It was twelve stories high, an ugly grey boxy looking concrete building with tiny windows.
“There...” he panted breathlessly. “That’s the one - Puddleby City Hall - we should be able to apparate to the roof from here.”
“Maybe you and Bill should rejoin the others and try to keep things in control down here,” suggested Harry. “Once we’re up there, only our Patronuses will be any use. But they’ll still need all the help they can get down here.”
Bill shook his head. “I’m not so sure about that... If the building itself is overrun with Inferi, you’ll need some backup to keep the roof clear while you lot do what you have to do.”
Harry glanced at Dora and Hermione as Jennifer, Parvati, Ginny, Fleur, Daphne, and Luna disintegrated a number of nearby Inferi emerging from dark alleyways and broken shop windows.
“Makes sense to me, Harry,” said Dora; Hermione nodded in agreement.
“Right then, let’s do this,” Harry replied, sighing. The street rang out with the sound of eleven disapparition cracks and was still once more.

~o0o~
If it had been cold and wet in the streets below, it was even worse at the top of the twelve story building, the bitter wind driving the sleet with great force, whipping their hair and stinging their faces. Rivulets of water cascaded from the slushy rooftop as Hermione, Harry, Dora, and the rest of the Coven peered down at the town below, assessing the task at hand.
The two tallest of the buildings nearby were only seven or eight stories high, the rest no taller than five or six, and downtown was no bigger than eight city blocks maximum. Most of Puddleby was in relatively clear line of sight, and Harry reckoned the Corporeal Patronuses would be able to sweep around corners into most of the blind spots.
Bill stood by the door which led to the stairwell from the roof to the floors below inside. The troubled look on Joseph’s face was easy to read. Sighing, Bill passed Joseph one of the Order’s communication mirrors; like all Order members, he always carried a spare.
“Okay, this is just in case you get into trouble. Just touch it and say my name if you need me to get you out of a sticky spot... I know you want to make sure that anyone working late is safe, but if things look bad in there - if you see a whole load of them - don’t try to take them all on yourself,” said Bill firmly.
“Just get back up here,” he continued. “The most important thing right now is to make sure that no Inferi get onto this roof so that Harry and his friends can wipe out as many of them as possible without interruption... That’s the way we save the most lives - got it?”
Joseph nodded, giving Bill a look of gratitude for even a small chance to rescue a few people.
“Yeah... alright then. I’ll just give the upper floors a quick check and be right back...”
Harry shook as much water and snow from his shaggy moptop and tail as he could, and imperviused his glasses again to make sure that he could see clearly. The hordes of Undead looked like ants in the wet streets below. The soggy furry tails of Hermione, Parvati, Ginny, and Luna quivered with anticipation, as did Jennifer and Daphne’s butterfly wings, while they waited for Harry’s lead with Dora and Fleur.
“Okay... We might as well start from this side of the building,” said Harry. “Now we know for sure that all of our Patronuses work on inferi, we should be able to sweep a fairly wide swath across the town with them. Anyway, we’ll keep going and work our way around the building, then check in with Dumbledore and the Order to see if there’s any missed areas that we can help them with.”
Satisfied that everyone was ready, Harry nodded.
“On my mark - NOW!” he barked.
Bill kept watch by the door, marveling at the radiant bursts of brilliant light jetting from the wands of the Potters and their friends. From their high vantage point, they were apparently able to reach all the way to the edges of the town, which he guessed was perhaps ten to fifteen square kilometres in size.
A knock on the roof-access door startled Bill. He cracked the door a bit and peeked, relieved to see Joseph back and unharmed; he opened the door wide to discover that Joseph had with him a number of muggles: several women and one man who had apparently been working late in their offices.
“What on earth is going on up here?” asked an authoritative woman with dark brown hair in business attire when she saw what appeared to be nine teenagers projecting massive floodlights as bright as the sun around the small city from thin sticks by the edge of the building. Even odder was the fact that a number of the girls seemed to be wearing extremely lifelike costume cat-tails and cat-ears - though one of the tails looked like it might be a fox tail - and two of them appeared to be dressed up as fairies.
“Er...” Joseph wasn’t sure what to say without violating the International Statute of Secrecy any more than they were already. Fortunately, Bill, as a practiced Order member close to the Inner Circle had a pat answer ready for the occasion.
“Sorry Ma’am - we’re not at liberty to give the details. Suffice it to say that we’re employing a new Top Secret weapon designed to attack the Zombies without killing everyone else and burning the city down...”
“Really? You lot don’t look like MI5,” said the man with closely cropped greying hair - also wearing a business suit - as he took in the catboy and catgirls, and the butterfly girls, and the girl with pink spiky hair, Bill’s long wet ponytail, his fang earring, and Joseph’s dreadlocks with an air of disdain.
“You look more like a load of mad Ravers to me...” he sneered. “Did your tour-bus break down?”
Bill rolled his eyes. “We’re a Special Unit - mostly scientists and a few undercover security agents. They let us wear what we like.”
The greying man - Puddleby’s Finance Manager - continued to look more than skeptical. But one of the younger women shivering from the icy damp seemed not to mind Bill’s appearance in the least; if anything her expression suggested that she found him quite enticing, and she seemed more excited by the presence of the catgirls than anything.
“Ooooh,” said the young blonde woman, batting her eyelashes at Bill. “Is your Unit like the ones on Dr Who then? Are the catgirls enhanced DNA mutants? Can’t we at least have a look at what’s goin’ on?”
Bill felt himself growing a bit warm. He gave the young woman a winning smile. She was very much his “type,” and looked to be of a similar age as himself.
“Oh alright then... as long as we don’t get in the way of the... er... Prodigies...” Bill motioned to Joseph to keep an eye on the door and the others as he took the young woman by the arm and led her towards the Potters and their friends.
Joseph rolled his eyes and smirked a bit with a shake of his head. This was hardly the time to be chatting up muggle women. The authoritative looking woman with dark hair frowned, apparently thinking much the same thing - though entirely unaware that such things as wizards were in fact real. As the mayor’s deputy, it was simply her duty to see to the safety of the town’s employees.
“Miriam,” she said warningly, “be careful. We don’t know these people...”
“So what are those sticks they’re pointing?” Miriam asked Bill, ignoring her boss entirely. “Are they like the Doctor’s Sonic Screwdrivers?”
“Sorry - I really couldn’t say!” Bill looked extremely apologetic. “At least not unless we were much more closely acquainted,” he said quietly as he leaned in closer so that the others couldn’t hear.
“Well... I suppose I’ll just have to get to know you much better then,” giggled Miriam. “Perhaps I can get your number.”
As they gradually made their way around to the other side of the building, at least half the town hopefully cleared of Inferi, Harry and Hermione noticed Ginny whispering and giggling with Luna and Parvati, whose wet furry tails quivered with mirth. Harry, Hermione, Daphne, Jennifer, Fleur, and Dora all looked to see what had distracted them and spotted Bill standing nearby and getting on like a house on fire with a blushing muggle girl who looked about college age.
“Oi - we’re working here!” Harry barked at the distracted members of the Coven; he was more amused than annoyed, and frankly glad for a moment of levity amidst all the darkness and horror.
“Sorry Harry!” giggled Ginny, Parvati, and Luna in unison.
“My fault Harry,” said Bill. “Sorry about that - don’t mind us. We’ll stay back.”
Hermione took the opportunity to make contact with Dumbledore. His crystal blue eyes looked back at her warmly from the mirror; she could see relieved people in the streets behind him.
“You are all doing splendidly!” Dumbledore beamed proudly at Hermione. “We are easily handling what few Inferi that are left in the shadows of the areas you have cleared thus far. And more of us are able to spend some time attending to the injured. I have called in more Order reinforcements and also for more of Monsieur Delacour’s people to assist us in going house to house.”
“That’s brilliant!” said Hermione, her wet furry ears twitching happily. “We’ll get on with it up here, and hopefully be finished soon. Then we can come down and help mop up...”
Harry peered over Hermione’s shoulder, having overheard the last bit.
“Excellent sir,” said Harry, feeling a swell of accomplishment. “We’re just about to tackle the other half of the city. We’ll keep you apprised of our situation.”
“Very good Harry!”
After quickly saying goodbye to Dumbledore, the Coven continued flooding the streets of Puddleby with pulses of blazing light. As time ticked by, Bill rubbed at his eyes, wondering if it was a trick of the light sparkling in the sleet, but when his new muggle girlfriend gasped, he knew he wasn’t just seeing things.
“Blimey! Is it just me...” Miriam whispered to Bill, “or are they actually glowing?”
Joseph and the muggles atop the tall grey building also buzzed with curiosity when they noticed the increasingly luminous silvery glow emanating from the teenagers. But the members of the Coven were too intensely focused on the task at hand to pay attention to anything else.
“Well that’s it then, isn’t it?” said Daphne hopefully, wiping the icy water and wet strands of hair out of her eyes when they had finally returned to their original position peering down the front of the City Hall building.
“Should be,” Harry replied. “I’ll give Dumbledore a call and see how things are going... Hang on, are we glowing again?”
“Yes!” said Luna, nodding vigorously and grinning, flinging droplets of water everywhere as she shook off her wet and bedraggled fluffy blonde tail. “Now Jennifer and Daphne really do look like fairies.”
“Wait, what’s that noise?” asked Daphne, frowning.
“Sounds like thunder to me!” said Parvati as she shook off and wrung some of the excess rainwater from her own tail. Dora shook her head as her eyes widened.
“That’s not thunder,” Dora muttered.
Sure enough, what appeared to be a number of small planes dropped below the clouds flying in formation, approaching Puddleby at a high rate of speed. Hermione squealed, furry tail bristling in horror when it suddenly struck her what was happening.
“HARRY!” she shrieked, grabbing his arm.
“Bloody Hell!” swore Harry, eyes bulging in horror as the fighter jets swooped low and roared overhead. “The RAF - but that means...”

~o0o~
The lead pilot of the RAF fighter jet squadron took stock of the situation below. The city streets looked a mess; in the darkness, with only city lights illuminating the town, he couldn’t quite make out what the piles of debris were, but the zombie hordes which had reportedly overrun Puddleby seemed to be strangely absent.
He did see some movement below, but as far as he could tell they could be a mix of survivors and a small incursion of zombies, relatively easy to control with the Prime Minister’s secretive “Special Units” which were usually called in for these sorts of operations.
Frowning, he contacted his base for further instructions.
“You have a go! I repeat, you have a go!” barked the base commander over the crackling radio.
“But sir...”
“This is a direct command - straight from the PM. You have your orders! Now carry them out!” the commander snapped.
“Yes sir!” sighed the squadron leader as he wheeled his jet around for another pass while the tanks and ground troops below encircled the town to cordon it off.

~o0o~
The Coven looked on in horror as the jets turned around and headed back towards town.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” shrieked the deputy mayor of Puddleby. “They said they were sending troops and helicopters to evacuate us... not this!” She yanked her mobile phone from her purse in a panic and let loose a stream of expletives when she realised that her service had been cut off.
Finally coming to his senses, Harry grabbed his mirror.
“Professor Dumbledore! Sir! We’ve got a problem...” Harry shouted. Dumbledore’s features appeared instantly in the mirror.
“So I see Harry!” said the headmaster with an air of calmness which he certainly did not feel. “Filius and I shall apparate to your location with some others. We should be there momentarily...”
“We might not have time sir! Will Protego Horribilis work against physical attacks?”
“Generally speaking, yes, over a relatively small area - such as Hogwarts - with enough wizards casting it simultaneously. But to protect a small city of this size against high speed projectile weapons has never been accomplished to my knowledge. It would require far more wizards with the necessary skills than we can round up in time. But we have no option but to try...”
Harry didn’t waste anymore time listening to Dumbledore; his mirror fell from his hand and shattered on the wet concrete roof of Puddleby’s city hall when he saw twenty missiles soaring towards them.
“Get in a circle, backs to each other, like we practiced,” he yelled at the Luminous Coven. “Protego Horribilis - we need to try and project it as far out around the town as we can, and concentrate hard on not letting anything through - NOW!”
Hearts thudding wildly against their ribcages, the Coven followed Harry’s instructions and concentrated with all their might as they raised their wands at the sky as one.
Bill and Joseph were still in shock, not knowing what to do. They were startled when the sleet suddenly stopped, apparently prevented from reaching them by the shimmering barely visible dome which reached from one end of Puddleby to the other.
Harry prayed this would work. He had no idea if the Coven was strong enough to project a shield powerful enough to protect a town which was a dozen square kilometres or more in size. He could only hope that their auras and the power of their nine Patronuses was an indication that they might actually be able to pull this off.
The Deputy Mayor scrunched her eyes tightly shut, crying as she embraced the quaking secretaries who had been helping her and the city Finance Manager crunch numbers late into the evening when the zombies had invaded Puddleby. The Finance Manager himself was ashen and had fallen to his knees in a slushy puddle, hands clasped before him, promising to never cheat on his wife again if he lived.
Desperately wishing that he was with his wife and his mum, Joseph looked over at Bill Weasley who was cuddling and reassuring the now sobbing blonde muggle girl.

~o0o~
The lead pilot of the squadron began to panic when his instrument readings began to oscillate wildly the closer he drew to the shimmering gossamer curtain which had suddenly appeared to fall over Puddleby. Something was very wrong. His gut told him that he was dead if he hit whatever that thing was.
“PULL UP! PULL UP!” he screamed at his squadron as he pulled all the way back on his steering unit.
As the jets soared up into the storm-clouds, the pilots glanced back to see their missiles exploding against the nearly invisible dome which covered the town below.

~o0o~
“MERLIN’S HAIRY BALLS!” yelled Alastor Moody when he saw the massive fireballs bursting against a glimmering barely visible shield above them. His magical false eye nearly flew out of his eye-socket as his one natural eye bulged. “Is... is that the Potters and their friends? ... All by themselves?”
Albus Dumbledore gaped at the sight. He was absolutely floored. Even for a Coven, their power levels appeared to be in uncharted territories. He had been quite hopeful that with the added support of himself, and a sizable number of other wizards that they might be able to augment the Coven’s shield enough to ward off a missile attack, but he had not been at all certain that it would be enough.
Filius Flitwick, who had arrived a short while ago with Severus Snape and Poppy Pomfrey, looked on in astonishment; his jaw dropped. It had taken him and all of the Professors to set up a shield at the Battle of Hogwarts, and he knew that even their shield over such a relatively small area would have likely collapsed under a concentrated missile attack.
At least half of the twenty or so missiles would have struck the castle. Not to mention that generally speaking, when casting such shield spells, one didn’t usually bother to try and block natural phenomenon such as wind and rain as the shield above was doing. The Potters and their friends had apparently gone all out to not let anything through.
A light clicked on in Filius’s head and he smacked his forehead, groaning as everything that had happened fell into place. Of course! He should have known!
The Castle Quakes! The supposed “Ongoing Upgrades” which had protected the walls of Hogwarts! The destruction of the Dementors! The destruction of Voldemort’s Inferi hordes hadn’t been a Secret Weapon at all. The Potters and their friends WERE the “Secret Weapon,” a Coven, but one so extraordinary, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in centuries perhaps.
“Albus,” squeaked the diminutive Charms Professor indignantly, “I do believe you have been withholding information from us. The Potters and their friends...”
Albus Dumbledore gave Flitwick a stern look and put a finger to his lips. Filius fell silent and Albus winked.
“Yes...” said Dumbledore very quietly. “But our advantage could be lost if the Minister were to learn of this fact and were to manage to somehow separate them. Let us keep everyone guessing for now! Not to mention that it could be most damaging to our young friends’ reputations should it ever be confirmed publicly.”
“Of course... Of course! I understand!” Filius squeaked excitedly. “You’re absolutely right Albus! Mum’s the word!”
Albus Dumbledore twinkled at Filius and nodded. His eyes returned to the cloudy and once again dark night sky as he stroked his long wet beard thoughtfully. Dumbledore found himself wondering how many muggles in Puddleby would find themselves exhibiting signs of accidental magic in the coming months.
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Moments in Love