Categories > Books > Harry Potter > MY BUNNY HUTCH
RESCUING HOSTAGES
5 reviewsIt's years after the war. Harry, Hermione and Luna are married, Harry's full time job is managing his vast estate, but he has an after work job too. Rated for language, and mentions sexual innuen...
5Funny
RESCUING HOSTAGES
Alorkin
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter (et al). That privilege goes to the talented and lovely J. K. Rowling, to whom I am eternally indebted, both for a fascinating read and for many bedtime stories for my daughter.
Disclaimer 2: This story is so NOT HBP compliant! That...book...and it sequel, Deadly Horrible, clearly demonstrate that even talented and lovely authors can make (huge and hideously ugly) mistakes.
A/N: I wish to thank my sister, FireLemming, for her beta work. She doesn't even follow the Harry Potter fandom, preferring TLK, and yet, will take time to offer much needed (and often unappreciated) critical advice. Having an expert on literature, the English language, European mythology and anthropology, leaning over your shoulder making snarky comments about your writing can be a pain, but it does cut down on research time.
----------------------------------------------------------
Harry was working on the tiresome paperwork that plagued him throughout his adult life. He’d thought his life at Hogwarts had been hectic, but here, he barely had time to kiss his lovely wives, Hermione and Luna, each morning before diving into the necessary but long overdue management tasks that Dumbledore had so long neglected. That he'd filed 'writ of conquest' with the goblins for each Death Eater he'd killed, hadn't helped. In fact, it had made the problem infinitely worse. Hermione was his chief executive, and made much of the business understandable, and Ginny helped when she arrived for work each morning but still, the mountain of parchment and paper never seemed to shrink.
If it wasn’t for his ‘off duty jobs’, he’d have gone ‘round the twist long before. Of course, there were those who said he’d done so already.
“Harry?” Hermione entered the room.
“Hey, sweetie!” He greeted his wife, dropped his pen and stretched. “What’s up?”
“I just got a request from the French Ministry for your rather unique abilities.”
“Someone gone missing?”
“Yeah. Gabrielle.”
“Little Gabby?” Harry was shocked. She was such a sweet little child when they’d last met. Now, she’d be around sixteen or seventeen, he thought.
“Mmhmm.”
“OK. So what happened?”
“She was snatched from a shopping trip this morning. A raiding party of six. Fleur, Angelique and Andreas were hurt badly. Bill is royally pissed! Two of the bad guys were killed. It turns out that Michael Corner and Blaise Zabini were the perps. First examination shows they each have an interesting tattoo on their chest. A stylized ‘M’ overlain by a skull. One more was badly injured, but managed to portkey away with the others.”
“Looks like we have another dark lord on the rise.”
“Yeah. That’s how I see it too.” Hermione nodded. A second later, she added: “Harry. Hannah just called from St. Mungo’s. Ron arrived there about an hour ago, with some heavy spell damage.”
“Spell damage?” Harry was instantly concerned. Though estranged due to their marriage, he and Hermione still thought of Ron as a friend.
“Yeah. Like the combat spells used by the French Gendarmes des Magiques.”
“Oh, shit!”
Fearing the worst, Harry grabbed his cloak and kissing Hermione good-bye, apparated to St. Mungo’s.
****
Harry entered the room and inked some runes on the doorframe. A faint crackling sound could be heard. Ron looked on as Harry quickly did the same with each of the walls. As he finished a squelching noise indicated a silencing charm was in place.
“You should have escaped when you had the chance, Ron. Now, it’s too late.”
“Not for this!” Ron held out a small gold pendant. He whispered: “Mudbloods must die!”
Harry smirked as Ron gaped at the now, useless portkey. “You never studied, Ron. You could have learned so much about magic. Instead, you wasted your time playing chess and Quidditch, and spying for manipulative old bastards.”
Summoning the portkey from Ron’s nerveless hand, Harry wandlessly lifted the redhead from the bed and slammed him against the wall. A sticking charm and Ron was part of the structure.
“Now, Ron, You’re going to tell me something. Those injuries you carry are the signature work of the Gendarmes des Magiques, in France, which means that you were part of the snatcher team that took Gabby and hurt Fleur. You wanna tell me about it?”
“I’m saying nothing, Potter! You can’t keep me here! You have no authority! You’re not an Auror!”
“No. I’m not. Although, they do ask me to do little jobs for them, now and again. Jobs like this. Jobs that they can…shall we say…disavow.”
“You can’t do, shit, Potter!”
Well, I suppose I could ask Bill to come in and have a little chat with you. I understand Fleur and his kids were pretty badly hurt. I wonder how many ancient Egyptian curses he really knows?”
Ron paled. He hadn’t known that the Veela and her half-breed spawn would be there. He didn’t care if they were hurt, but he knew that Bill wouldn’t bother with curses. His brother would simply beat him to death if he knew he’d been involved.
“OK, I can see I have your attention. Now. How do you want to do this? The easy way…or the fun way?” He grinned nastily held up a bottle of Veritaserum in one hand and a wicked looking switchblade knife in the other.
Ron started to shake, and nodded to the bottle.
“Coward.” Harry growled. He forced Ron’s mouth open and placed three drops of the enhanced Veritaserum on the traitor’s tongue. As Ron’s eyes grew glassy, he began his interrogation.
“Who is behind this?” Harry didn’t bother to check if the stuff was working. After all, Hermione had studied the serum and ‘improved’ it.
“Lord Malefic.” Ron’s voice was the atonal drone typical of such sera.
“And who is Malefic?”
“Ron began to shake. “Maaa…”
“Stop! Harry ordered. He understood that if he pressed, too hard, whatever binds Ron had on himself would kill him, and he didn’t want that…yet.
“Is there a reason you cannot say his name?”
“Yes.”
“What reason?”
“An oath of loyalty.”
“And the oath says…?”
“I will serve my lord and protect his secrets.”
“OK. Do I know him?”
“No. Not now.”
“Did I know him before?”
“Yes.”
“Did we go to school together?”
“Yes.”
Was he in Gryffindor?”
“No.”
Ravenclaw?”
“No.”
“Hufflepuff?”
“No.”
“Slytherin?” Ron began to shake again.
“Stop. Where can I find him?” Again, Ron began to spasm. Harry noticed that each time, the tremors were worse.
“Stop. How do you keep in contact?”
“Either he summons us through our mark, or we use a specially trained post owl.”
“Where is this mark?”
“My chest.”
Harry tore open Ron’s shirt. On his chest was a stylized ‘M’ with a skull in the center. “God!” Harry breathed. “Can that idiot get any more melodramatic!” He muttered.
“I don’t think so.” Ron answered.
Realizing Ron’s non sequitur was in answer to his muttered question, Harry chuckled.
“Where would I look to find this post owl?”
“My flat above the shop.”
“OK. Is Gabrielle at this Lord Malefic’s hideout?”
“Yes.”
“Any others?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“Twenty.”
“Why are they there?”
“Sacrifice.”
“When?”
“The solstice.” Harry groaned. The summer solstice was in three days.
“For what purpose?”
“Make my lord invincible.”
Harry prodded carefully, easing back whenever signs of the magical oath Ron had taken to the dark lord wannabe, showed themselves.
He discovered the hideout was a tiny atoll slightly southeast of the Faroe island chain in the North Atlantic. It was currently populated only by the dark lord’s minions, and the hostages, as it had been made unplottable, as a secret redoubt for this Malefic’s family since the end of World War II. Ron couldn’t give him any details on the island, but Harry had learned enough. Given the current political policy of ‘zero tolerance’, only a few people were arrogant to try to become dark lords and only one had the initial ‘M’.
He fed Ron the antidote to the truth serum and pulled out a pistol with a silencing charm. He racked a round into the chamber and aimed it at the tattoo. Ron recognized it for what it was.
“Please, Harry. Don’t kill me! I don’t wanna die!” He pleaded.
“You should have thought of that before you joined up with the ferret. You are a traitor to your family, and a traitor to your society.” Harry growled back.
“My society is pureblood!” Ron snarled. “Mudbloods and halfbloods have no place here!”
“Ron, you’re a jackass.” Harry growled. As he prepared to kill his first friend, he had a thought. He began to chuckle. Disarming the pistol and replacing it in his belt, he stunned Ronald Weasley, disillusioned him and sent a few cleaning spells around the room to erase the runes from the door and walls and the puddle of urine from below his formed friend. Releasing and levitating the unconscious fool, he slipped out and down the hall before the healer’s next round.
****
Two hours later, a farmer in Devon discovered a new animal. A red donkey with a nasty temper. Still, he’d long before learned how to deal with such stubborn animals. The ass tried to bite him, but a sharp smack across the nose had the donkey fleeing to the edge of the paddock, bawling in pain.
The farmer wondered a bit at the animal’s appearance, before turning to his chores. An hour later he returned to the paddock, where he saw the new animal carefully testing the fence for any possible escape.
~Hmmm.~ He thought. ~That’s unusual.~
****
Harry went to Ron’s flat where he found the owl. Before it woke, he stunned it. Taking the limp bird he went to see Luna at her shop. She carefully checked the bird and removed several compulsions, before waking it. Soothing the owl she carefully explained what had happened and why. The owl bobbed its head in understanding, but when Harry held out his hand, as a perch, it bit him. Looking smug, it retreated to Luna’s shoulder.
“Well, you did stun her. That wasn’t very nice.” Luna was unsympathetic.
Inside, Harry thought she was laughing at him. He sighed.
“All right. I apologize for stunning you, but I have hostages to rescue. That’s my job. I’d like you to take a message to Draco Malfoy. I’m going to cast a tracking spell on you so I can follow. Understand this, bird. Malfoy has taken chicks from their nests. He would eat them like a snake would.”
The owl was suddenly serious. She understood the danger snakes held for chicks. She held out her talon.
Harry carefully wrote out a note, forging Ron’s untidy scrawl. He cast the tracking charm on the owl and sent her on her way.
He kissed Luna good-bye and flooed back to Potter Manse in Godric’s Hollow, near Anglesey.
“Lucy! I’m home!” He called out, aping Desi Arnaz, and knowing how much that annoyed Hermione.
“Well hello, sweetheart!” Bill Weasley chuckled from a chair in the lounge. “I do hope Hermione doesn’t mind my just dropping over for a nooner!”
“Oh God!” Harry held his hands over his eyes. “Brain bleach! Brain bleach! Scourgify! Please!”
Bill laughed out loud.
Returning to his ‘serious mode’ Harry asked: “How are Fleur and the kids?”
“She’s frantic. The kids are too.”
“That sucks.” Harry commiserated. “Listen, Bill. I have some bad news.”
“She’s not…”
“Dead? No. Not yet. On the other hand, Ron is as good as.”
“Ron?”
“Turns out, he was part of that little snatch team.”
“Ron!?!”
“He was wounded by one of the gendarmes. Hermione got the call from Hannah at St. Mungo’s and came to see me. I went and interrogated him. It appears that ickle Ronnikins has sworn his loyalty to a new dark lord. None other than Draco Malfoy.”
“Oh, God! Mum and Dad would be turning over!” Bill was shocked.
“Yeah.” Harry still missed the elder Weasleys. They’d died recently; peacefully and in their sleep, but the pain of their loss was still fresh.
“What did you do to him?
“Well, I was gonna shoot him, but he begged me not to. I told him he’d betrayed his society and he began to spout that purist tripe, and that set me off. I wanted to beat stupid fuck to death, but instead, I called him a jackass. That gave me an idea.”
“What?”
“I turned him into a donkey and dropped him off at a farm somewhere. He’ll live a nice long life and spend the rest of his days hauling a cart.”
Bill actually laughed. “Fleur will love that!”
Harry continued.
“I’ve sent his owl with an ‘I’m safe but injured’ message and put an undetectable tracker on the bird. Right now, I’m going to talk to Hermione and let her know what I plan to do. There are a lot of other girls there as well. It turns out the ferret is planning a big virgin sacrifice on the solstice to make himself invincible. I’m going to disrupt his plans.”
“How are you going to get them out?”
“Illegal portkey, of course! How else?”
“And how are you going to get them to come with?”
“I’m going to make them an offer they can’t refuse.” Harry smirked so evilly that Bill involuntarily stepped back.
“Do I want to know?”
“Probably not. In fact, I think it’s better if you didn’t.”
Bill left through the floo and Harry went in search of his beautiful wife. Finding her in the conservatory he kissed her ‘hello’, and detailed his actions including what he did to his longtime friend. Her face fell, but they both understood that Ron had made his choice. Despite Dumbledore’s insistence, one could show no mercy to terrorists, and Harry’s solution was a lot better than Ron deserved.
“Hermione, I’ve got a tracker on the owl Ron used. I’m going after it, but I’m likely to be returning with several women.”
“Several women?” Hermione was unsure she’d heard what she thought she had.
“Hermione, Ron said there were a number of hostages. I can’t leave them behind. Even if I rescued Gabby, if I left the others behind, they’d still die. I can’t allow that bastard to kill those women.”
“OK. I can see that. How are you going to convince them?”
“Oh, I dunno…Whaddya think about a harem?”
“WHAT!?!”
“A harem.”
“Harry! I can’t believe you! You’d make them your concubines in exchange for rescuing them?”
“While it sounds like a lot of fun, I was thinking I could offer them a provisional contract. That way, it could be broken.” He snickered.
Hermione’s eyes widened in shock at how easily she’d been played.
“You set me up!” She groused.
“Ep!” He leaned in and kissed her nose. Instead of swatting him, as he so richly deserved, Hermione responded in a like manner and within minutes they were stripping off their clothing.
Sighing, Winky cast silencing charms around their room and told Ginny she had the rest f the day off, if she wanted it.
“Harry and Hermione are going at it?” She grinned.
“Like bunnies.” Was all Winky said.
Almost two hours later, Harry left a happy and satisfied Hermione sleeping in their bed. He gathered some items he’d need, disillusioned himself and his Firebolt and mounted his broom. Even now, ten years after it had been released, it was still one of the top racing brooms in the world.
Following the tracker, he headed northwest.
****
Five hours later, as Harry was almost to the little islet of Sudhuroy in the Faroe Islands, he felt the tracker shift position. First it was ahead of him and then, behind. Bringing the Firebolt to a halt, he turned until he could feel the tracker again. He flew forward and it grew stronger. Two miles later, it was behind him again. He reversed course again, and once more, eased forward, dropping to just a few dozen feet from the waves. He soon began to feel that there wasn’t anything of interest here and didn’t he have something important to do elsewhere?
“Gotcha!” He muttered in triumph. He cast a bubblehead charm and heating charms on himself, and a waterproofing spell on his broom, then dropped into the ocean and ‘flew’ just below the waves with his senses outstretched. As he thought, the charms stopped at the water. He eased his way under the charms layered around the hidden base. He wasn’t impressed. These were standard household wards. Clearly, they’d been placed by a rank amateur.
Harry landed in the dark, on a tiny little spot of land that could barely call itself an island. Barely a mile across, it was little more than a hunk of rock, sparsely covered with hardy foliage and a small patch of trees in the center, and having sharp rocks all around the edge of the islet. All told, it was a rather defensible position. Around the perimeter were a series of rusting gun emplacements, and ammunitions bunkers. To the north, a small gathering of concrete bunkers and barracks’, left over from the war, and refitted to serve as Malfoy’s hideout. A sacrificial altar was waiting between the bunkers, for the ‘festivities’ scheduled for the solstice.
In the middle of the island, was another bunker holding the hostages.
Harry discovered that Draco had actually learned something. Apparently he had little problem with using muggle techniques. Guard dogs with tracking charms wandered the islet.
Evading human guards was easy. Evading dogs was not…until he conjured a few dozen deadly snakes at various places. He cast warming charms on the reptiles and promised them as many guards and dogs as they could eat, and once that was done, the snakes vanished into the brush. Dogs began to vanish into the night. Harry took flight again.
He flew across the island familiarizing himself with its lay-out.
Flying along silently, Harry tracked the guard patrols, making sure they were accurate. They were. The island was sectored into quarters. Each quarter had it’s own patrols and each patrol took fourteen minutes.
Several stops across and around the little atoll, transfiguring things, and planting his little surprises, ensured that this would be quite a surprise for the new dark lord.
Satisfied, he flew toward the little concrete bunker holding the hostages.
****
Harry watched from the bushes, as the security patrol checked on the prison bunker. They exchanged security code words with the guards there, and, having satisfied themselves that all was in order, apparated away.
Harry waited for a few minutes, until the guard’s relaxing, let him know the patrol had passed. He slipped up behind one of the soon to-be-dead guards, slipped a garrote over his head and yanked tight. The fine wire sliced through the man's throat, cutting off any attempt to cry for help, and seconds later he fell kicking as he strangled. Harry was gone already. The next guard in line hadn’t even heard his partner’s muted gasp before he died from he knife thrust up and into his brain from behind. The next patrol shouldn't return for ten minutes, if he'd observed correctly. Harry hauled the dead guards up and using some explosive bolts through each of their shoulders, literally nailed them to the concrete wall.
Done that he calmly wrapped thin thermite wires round the door's heavy steel hinges, covered them with grey clay to mask any light, and set them off.
The door came loose.
He armed his dart gun, and eased into the room.
Inside the bunker, he found twenty-three young women of various ages, from fourteen to twenty-five or so. He watched them carefully for signs of collaborators. There were two women he recognized, right off. Both were purebloods, who Draco would never consider as ‘expendable’, he dispelled his invisibility charm.
"Listen up!" He commanded. Shrieks filled the room as the women there turned to face him. Off in the back, a face he recognized smirked. He raised the pistol and with a quiet 'phutt-phutt', dropped her. More screams sounded as the black haired bitch fell. A second collaborator tried for the wand under her pillow. She also fell as two more darts struck her.
"I’m Harry Potter. I've been sent here to find and retrieve Gabrielle Delacour.”
"‘Arry?" Gabrielle stepped shyly forward. 'Ow do I know it ees you?"
"You promised me a knobber as soon as you learned how, when I pulled your skinny little arse out of the black lake."
Gabrielle flushed a deep crimson, before flinging herself into Harry’s arms. “‘Arry!” she squealed, kissing his face, over and over.
“What did you do to them?" One of the older women asked, pointing to the downed women.
Disengaging the overexcited Veela, Harry replied: "Oh, that. Don’t worry. It’s just a simple neurotoxin. It renders them unconscious within a second." What Harry didn't mention was that the sea snake venom would also render them rather dead almost as quickly. He hated spies and betrayers! Ron had learned that the hard way. Now, they had as well.
“If you’ll look on each of their beds, you’ll find their wands. Since none of you have yours, I can safely assume that means that they weren’t intended for the same fate as you were. They were working for Malefic.”
He took Gabrielle's hand and headed toward the door. "OK. Let's go!"
"Wait!" The same woman called.
"Yeah?"
"Are you just going to leave the rest of us?"
"Umm, yeah. That was the plan."
"How could you do that?"
"Why not?"
"What?"
"I said: Why not? After all, I'm only being paid to collect Gabrielle."
"But who knows what kind of things they'll do to us?" A younger woman squealed.
"Um…I do. But don't worry. It'll 'probably' be over quickly."
"Are they going to sacrifice us?" She moaned.
"Yeah, last I heard."
"And you don't have a problem with that?" Another woman snapped.
"Nope. Listen, you lot got yourselves captured by being careless, why should I pull your arses out of the fire?"
None of them had an answer.
"On the other hand…" Harry grinned. "I could always use more concubines."
Inwardly he began counting: ~5, 4, 3, 2…~
"WHAT!?!"
~Damn! I was off!~
"How could you ask that of us?" She yelled.
"D'you see any better offers?" He countered.
Again, no one had an answer.
"Think of it like this. Your lives will be comfortable and you'll never be eligible for virgin sacrifices again."
Surprisingly, that did the trick. Each woman there, realizing it was better to be a well-cared-for concubine to the famous Harry Potter than to be a sacrifice in some dark ritual, nodded.
"Repeat after me, then. "I swear upon my magic that I will freely join with Harry James Potter as concubine, known as 'Potter's Hotties', assuming all the rights, responsibilities and privileges thereunto, and keeping safe all secrets entrusted to me, until this contract is voided by both myself and Harry James Potter."
Every woman there swore the oath, including Gabrielle. He looked at her questioningly but she formed her lips into an 'O', and slowly bobbed her head up and down. Harry grinned as he accepted her magical promise.
“Is there anybody else here?” He asked, not wanting any ‘collateral damage. A quick headcount ensured him that the twenty-one remaining women were all that were left. He personally checked the small toilet, transfiguring things along the way, and passing by the bodies of the two spies, knelt by one, felt for a pulse to assuage the other girls and smiled as he found her body cooling. He wrote out a quick note, and covering his movement with his rising, stabbed through it and into her body with something invisible.
"How are we going to get away?" One woman asked, flushing in embarrassment at the man she'd just sworn her body to. Harry turned from the thick concrete he'd just transfigured into type four DEMEX.
"Oh, that. We'll use this portkey." He held out a length of coiled rope.
"PORTKEY!?!" The oldest one shrieked.
"Of course! After all, what kind of rescuer would I be if I didn't have a guaranteed escape handy? Hurry up now, the patrol is almost here." He tossed one end of the rope into the crowd.
Outside the concrete shelter, they could hear the pop of apparation. "Oi!” A voice sounded. “What the hell is wrong with you two?"
It took nothing more. All the women grabbed the rope and Harry activated the portkey as the guards outside discovered their compatriots’ unfortunate demises.
****
Harry and the hotties arrived at Potter Manse, to find Hermione waiting.
“Damn, Harry!” She snarked. “When you said ‘harem’ I thought three or four girls! Looks like you’ve got enough here to field two Quidditch teams…plus reserves!” She grinned openly and gathered Gabrielle into her arms, bussing her soundly.
“Hello, Gabrielle. It’s good to see you safe.”
Turning to the others, she called out: “Will you all follow me please. There’s a place where you can freshen up and find a bunk. Starting tomorrow, we’ll reunite as many of you, with your families as we can.”
She led them all away in a businesslike fashion, explaining that the oath Harry had hem swear was real, but there was an escape clause built in. None of them need sacrifice their virginities for the rescue.
Harry chuckled as he doffed his gear and handed it to Dobby, then went into his office. He seated himself behind his desk in his brand-new, black leather, ‘dark lord’ style executive’s chair and activated the monitors on his wall. In one, he saw the transfigured form of Ronald Weasley kicking and braying as his new owner tried to herd him into a barn. He sighed in regret at the necessity. A gentle hand warmed his shoulder. Looking up he found Gabrielle gazing fondly back. “‘E shose zis path, ‘Arry. Nossing you could do, n’est-ce pas?”
“He was still my friend, Gabrielle. That’s what hurts the most. He used to be a decent person.”
“Oui. ‘E was, but he ‘as shanged in recent years, and not for ze better.”
“Yeah.”
****
As Hermione returned, followed by Luna, Neville and Ginny, he switched the feed from another monitor. Together they watched as Draco Malfoy arrived on the scene. His dogs had vanished, and his sacrifices had been stolen, and now, he was going to make his guards pay! He Cruciated one of the dead men until his chief, lieutenant, Theodore Nott, told him they'd been dead for some time. Infuriated by being made to look stupid, he turned his wand on Nott. His tantrum was enough to guarantee that Theodore died in agony.
Kicking the dead minion aside, Malfoy stormed through the doorway, and into the concrete structure. His remaining supporters crowded in behind him. Harry switched over to the two monitoring beads he’d placed in the corners of the chamber.
Two bodies remained. Pansy Parkinson and Marietta Edgecomb. Both were quite dead. A note stuck to Pansy courtesy of a long dagger, told him what he needed to know.
It read:
"Heya Ferret-face.
I win!
Harry."
"POTTER!" Draco shrieked.
"And that's my cue." Harry flipped up a safety cover and pressed a button.
On a tiny, unplottable island southeast of Sudhuroy, a massive explosion, boiled up into the air, fuelled by the more than hundred thousand pounds of DEMEX placed all around the dark lord's hideout. Claymore mines, interspaced between the munitions dumps ensured that anyone who escaped the blasts would die anyway. It wasn't necessary. The island itself became nothing more than scorched and barren rock, protruding a few meters above the Atlantic Ocean.
****
In Harry’s office, Gabrielle pushed Harry’s seat back and knelt before him.
“Gabrielle?” He asked. “What are you doing?”
“I made a promise, ‘Arry.” She smiled up at him. “I keep my promises.”
She undid his pants and stroked him to tumescence then lowered her mouth to his erection.
“Eerp!”
Hermione patted him on the shoulder and smirked: “Just go along with it, Harry.”
Fini.
Alorkin
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter (et al). That privilege goes to the talented and lovely J. K. Rowling, to whom I am eternally indebted, both for a fascinating read and for many bedtime stories for my daughter.
Disclaimer 2: This story is so NOT HBP compliant! That...book...and it sequel, Deadly Horrible, clearly demonstrate that even talented and lovely authors can make (huge and hideously ugly) mistakes.
A/N: I wish to thank my sister, FireLemming, for her beta work. She doesn't even follow the Harry Potter fandom, preferring TLK, and yet, will take time to offer much needed (and often unappreciated) critical advice. Having an expert on literature, the English language, European mythology and anthropology, leaning over your shoulder making snarky comments about your writing can be a pain, but it does cut down on research time.
----------------------------------------------------------
Harry was working on the tiresome paperwork that plagued him throughout his adult life. He’d thought his life at Hogwarts had been hectic, but here, he barely had time to kiss his lovely wives, Hermione and Luna, each morning before diving into the necessary but long overdue management tasks that Dumbledore had so long neglected. That he'd filed 'writ of conquest' with the goblins for each Death Eater he'd killed, hadn't helped. In fact, it had made the problem infinitely worse. Hermione was his chief executive, and made much of the business understandable, and Ginny helped when she arrived for work each morning but still, the mountain of parchment and paper never seemed to shrink.
If it wasn’t for his ‘off duty jobs’, he’d have gone ‘round the twist long before. Of course, there were those who said he’d done so already.
“Harry?” Hermione entered the room.
“Hey, sweetie!” He greeted his wife, dropped his pen and stretched. “What’s up?”
“I just got a request from the French Ministry for your rather unique abilities.”
“Someone gone missing?”
“Yeah. Gabrielle.”
“Little Gabby?” Harry was shocked. She was such a sweet little child when they’d last met. Now, she’d be around sixteen or seventeen, he thought.
“Mmhmm.”
“OK. So what happened?”
“She was snatched from a shopping trip this morning. A raiding party of six. Fleur, Angelique and Andreas were hurt badly. Bill is royally pissed! Two of the bad guys were killed. It turns out that Michael Corner and Blaise Zabini were the perps. First examination shows they each have an interesting tattoo on their chest. A stylized ‘M’ overlain by a skull. One more was badly injured, but managed to portkey away with the others.”
“Looks like we have another dark lord on the rise.”
“Yeah. That’s how I see it too.” Hermione nodded. A second later, she added: “Harry. Hannah just called from St. Mungo’s. Ron arrived there about an hour ago, with some heavy spell damage.”
“Spell damage?” Harry was instantly concerned. Though estranged due to their marriage, he and Hermione still thought of Ron as a friend.
“Yeah. Like the combat spells used by the French Gendarmes des Magiques.”
“Oh, shit!”
Fearing the worst, Harry grabbed his cloak and kissing Hermione good-bye, apparated to St. Mungo’s.
****
Harry entered the room and inked some runes on the doorframe. A faint crackling sound could be heard. Ron looked on as Harry quickly did the same with each of the walls. As he finished a squelching noise indicated a silencing charm was in place.
“You should have escaped when you had the chance, Ron. Now, it’s too late.”
“Not for this!” Ron held out a small gold pendant. He whispered: “Mudbloods must die!”
Harry smirked as Ron gaped at the now, useless portkey. “You never studied, Ron. You could have learned so much about magic. Instead, you wasted your time playing chess and Quidditch, and spying for manipulative old bastards.”
Summoning the portkey from Ron’s nerveless hand, Harry wandlessly lifted the redhead from the bed and slammed him against the wall. A sticking charm and Ron was part of the structure.
“Now, Ron, You’re going to tell me something. Those injuries you carry are the signature work of the Gendarmes des Magiques, in France, which means that you were part of the snatcher team that took Gabby and hurt Fleur. You wanna tell me about it?”
“I’m saying nothing, Potter! You can’t keep me here! You have no authority! You’re not an Auror!”
“No. I’m not. Although, they do ask me to do little jobs for them, now and again. Jobs like this. Jobs that they can…shall we say…disavow.”
“You can’t do, shit, Potter!”
Well, I suppose I could ask Bill to come in and have a little chat with you. I understand Fleur and his kids were pretty badly hurt. I wonder how many ancient Egyptian curses he really knows?”
Ron paled. He hadn’t known that the Veela and her half-breed spawn would be there. He didn’t care if they were hurt, but he knew that Bill wouldn’t bother with curses. His brother would simply beat him to death if he knew he’d been involved.
“OK, I can see I have your attention. Now. How do you want to do this? The easy way…or the fun way?” He grinned nastily held up a bottle of Veritaserum in one hand and a wicked looking switchblade knife in the other.
Ron started to shake, and nodded to the bottle.
“Coward.” Harry growled. He forced Ron’s mouth open and placed three drops of the enhanced Veritaserum on the traitor’s tongue. As Ron’s eyes grew glassy, he began his interrogation.
“Who is behind this?” Harry didn’t bother to check if the stuff was working. After all, Hermione had studied the serum and ‘improved’ it.
“Lord Malefic.” Ron’s voice was the atonal drone typical of such sera.
“And who is Malefic?”
“Ron began to shake. “Maaa…”
“Stop! Harry ordered. He understood that if he pressed, too hard, whatever binds Ron had on himself would kill him, and he didn’t want that…yet.
“Is there a reason you cannot say his name?”
“Yes.”
“What reason?”
“An oath of loyalty.”
“And the oath says…?”
“I will serve my lord and protect his secrets.”
“OK. Do I know him?”
“No. Not now.”
“Did I know him before?”
“Yes.”
“Did we go to school together?”
“Yes.”
Was he in Gryffindor?”
“No.”
Ravenclaw?”
“No.”
“Hufflepuff?”
“No.”
“Slytherin?” Ron began to shake again.
“Stop. Where can I find him?” Again, Ron began to spasm. Harry noticed that each time, the tremors were worse.
“Stop. How do you keep in contact?”
“Either he summons us through our mark, or we use a specially trained post owl.”
“Where is this mark?”
“My chest.”
Harry tore open Ron’s shirt. On his chest was a stylized ‘M’ with a skull in the center. “God!” Harry breathed. “Can that idiot get any more melodramatic!” He muttered.
“I don’t think so.” Ron answered.
Realizing Ron’s non sequitur was in answer to his muttered question, Harry chuckled.
“Where would I look to find this post owl?”
“My flat above the shop.”
“OK. Is Gabrielle at this Lord Malefic’s hideout?”
“Yes.”
“Any others?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“Twenty.”
“Why are they there?”
“Sacrifice.”
“When?”
“The solstice.” Harry groaned. The summer solstice was in three days.
“For what purpose?”
“Make my lord invincible.”
Harry prodded carefully, easing back whenever signs of the magical oath Ron had taken to the dark lord wannabe, showed themselves.
He discovered the hideout was a tiny atoll slightly southeast of the Faroe island chain in the North Atlantic. It was currently populated only by the dark lord’s minions, and the hostages, as it had been made unplottable, as a secret redoubt for this Malefic’s family since the end of World War II. Ron couldn’t give him any details on the island, but Harry had learned enough. Given the current political policy of ‘zero tolerance’, only a few people were arrogant to try to become dark lords and only one had the initial ‘M’.
He fed Ron the antidote to the truth serum and pulled out a pistol with a silencing charm. He racked a round into the chamber and aimed it at the tattoo. Ron recognized it for what it was.
“Please, Harry. Don’t kill me! I don’t wanna die!” He pleaded.
“You should have thought of that before you joined up with the ferret. You are a traitor to your family, and a traitor to your society.” Harry growled back.
“My society is pureblood!” Ron snarled. “Mudbloods and halfbloods have no place here!”
“Ron, you’re a jackass.” Harry growled. As he prepared to kill his first friend, he had a thought. He began to chuckle. Disarming the pistol and replacing it in his belt, he stunned Ronald Weasley, disillusioned him and sent a few cleaning spells around the room to erase the runes from the door and walls and the puddle of urine from below his formed friend. Releasing and levitating the unconscious fool, he slipped out and down the hall before the healer’s next round.
****
Two hours later, a farmer in Devon discovered a new animal. A red donkey with a nasty temper. Still, he’d long before learned how to deal with such stubborn animals. The ass tried to bite him, but a sharp smack across the nose had the donkey fleeing to the edge of the paddock, bawling in pain.
The farmer wondered a bit at the animal’s appearance, before turning to his chores. An hour later he returned to the paddock, where he saw the new animal carefully testing the fence for any possible escape.
~Hmmm.~ He thought. ~That’s unusual.~
****
Harry went to Ron’s flat where he found the owl. Before it woke, he stunned it. Taking the limp bird he went to see Luna at her shop. She carefully checked the bird and removed several compulsions, before waking it. Soothing the owl she carefully explained what had happened and why. The owl bobbed its head in understanding, but when Harry held out his hand, as a perch, it bit him. Looking smug, it retreated to Luna’s shoulder.
“Well, you did stun her. That wasn’t very nice.” Luna was unsympathetic.
Inside, Harry thought she was laughing at him. He sighed.
“All right. I apologize for stunning you, but I have hostages to rescue. That’s my job. I’d like you to take a message to Draco Malfoy. I’m going to cast a tracking spell on you so I can follow. Understand this, bird. Malfoy has taken chicks from their nests. He would eat them like a snake would.”
The owl was suddenly serious. She understood the danger snakes held for chicks. She held out her talon.
Harry carefully wrote out a note, forging Ron’s untidy scrawl. He cast the tracking charm on the owl and sent her on her way.
He kissed Luna good-bye and flooed back to Potter Manse in Godric’s Hollow, near Anglesey.
“Lucy! I’m home!” He called out, aping Desi Arnaz, and knowing how much that annoyed Hermione.
“Well hello, sweetheart!” Bill Weasley chuckled from a chair in the lounge. “I do hope Hermione doesn’t mind my just dropping over for a nooner!”
“Oh God!” Harry held his hands over his eyes. “Brain bleach! Brain bleach! Scourgify! Please!”
Bill laughed out loud.
Returning to his ‘serious mode’ Harry asked: “How are Fleur and the kids?”
“She’s frantic. The kids are too.”
“That sucks.” Harry commiserated. “Listen, Bill. I have some bad news.”
“She’s not…”
“Dead? No. Not yet. On the other hand, Ron is as good as.”
“Ron?”
“Turns out, he was part of that little snatch team.”
“Ron!?!”
“He was wounded by one of the gendarmes. Hermione got the call from Hannah at St. Mungo’s and came to see me. I went and interrogated him. It appears that ickle Ronnikins has sworn his loyalty to a new dark lord. None other than Draco Malfoy.”
“Oh, God! Mum and Dad would be turning over!” Bill was shocked.
“Yeah.” Harry still missed the elder Weasleys. They’d died recently; peacefully and in their sleep, but the pain of their loss was still fresh.
“What did you do to him?
“Well, I was gonna shoot him, but he begged me not to. I told him he’d betrayed his society and he began to spout that purist tripe, and that set me off. I wanted to beat stupid fuck to death, but instead, I called him a jackass. That gave me an idea.”
“What?”
“I turned him into a donkey and dropped him off at a farm somewhere. He’ll live a nice long life and spend the rest of his days hauling a cart.”
Bill actually laughed. “Fleur will love that!”
Harry continued.
“I’ve sent his owl with an ‘I’m safe but injured’ message and put an undetectable tracker on the bird. Right now, I’m going to talk to Hermione and let her know what I plan to do. There are a lot of other girls there as well. It turns out the ferret is planning a big virgin sacrifice on the solstice to make himself invincible. I’m going to disrupt his plans.”
“How are you going to get them out?”
“Illegal portkey, of course! How else?”
“And how are you going to get them to come with?”
“I’m going to make them an offer they can’t refuse.” Harry smirked so evilly that Bill involuntarily stepped back.
“Do I want to know?”
“Probably not. In fact, I think it’s better if you didn’t.”
Bill left through the floo and Harry went in search of his beautiful wife. Finding her in the conservatory he kissed her ‘hello’, and detailed his actions including what he did to his longtime friend. Her face fell, but they both understood that Ron had made his choice. Despite Dumbledore’s insistence, one could show no mercy to terrorists, and Harry’s solution was a lot better than Ron deserved.
“Hermione, I’ve got a tracker on the owl Ron used. I’m going after it, but I’m likely to be returning with several women.”
“Several women?” Hermione was unsure she’d heard what she thought she had.
“Hermione, Ron said there were a number of hostages. I can’t leave them behind. Even if I rescued Gabby, if I left the others behind, they’d still die. I can’t allow that bastard to kill those women.”
“OK. I can see that. How are you going to convince them?”
“Oh, I dunno…Whaddya think about a harem?”
“WHAT!?!”
“A harem.”
“Harry! I can’t believe you! You’d make them your concubines in exchange for rescuing them?”
“While it sounds like a lot of fun, I was thinking I could offer them a provisional contract. That way, it could be broken.” He snickered.
Hermione’s eyes widened in shock at how easily she’d been played.
“You set me up!” She groused.
“Ep!” He leaned in and kissed her nose. Instead of swatting him, as he so richly deserved, Hermione responded in a like manner and within minutes they were stripping off their clothing.
Sighing, Winky cast silencing charms around their room and told Ginny she had the rest f the day off, if she wanted it.
“Harry and Hermione are going at it?” She grinned.
“Like bunnies.” Was all Winky said.
Almost two hours later, Harry left a happy and satisfied Hermione sleeping in their bed. He gathered some items he’d need, disillusioned himself and his Firebolt and mounted his broom. Even now, ten years after it had been released, it was still one of the top racing brooms in the world.
Following the tracker, he headed northwest.
****
Five hours later, as Harry was almost to the little islet of Sudhuroy in the Faroe Islands, he felt the tracker shift position. First it was ahead of him and then, behind. Bringing the Firebolt to a halt, he turned until he could feel the tracker again. He flew forward and it grew stronger. Two miles later, it was behind him again. He reversed course again, and once more, eased forward, dropping to just a few dozen feet from the waves. He soon began to feel that there wasn’t anything of interest here and didn’t he have something important to do elsewhere?
“Gotcha!” He muttered in triumph. He cast a bubblehead charm and heating charms on himself, and a waterproofing spell on his broom, then dropped into the ocean and ‘flew’ just below the waves with his senses outstretched. As he thought, the charms stopped at the water. He eased his way under the charms layered around the hidden base. He wasn’t impressed. These were standard household wards. Clearly, they’d been placed by a rank amateur.
Harry landed in the dark, on a tiny little spot of land that could barely call itself an island. Barely a mile across, it was little more than a hunk of rock, sparsely covered with hardy foliage and a small patch of trees in the center, and having sharp rocks all around the edge of the islet. All told, it was a rather defensible position. Around the perimeter were a series of rusting gun emplacements, and ammunitions bunkers. To the north, a small gathering of concrete bunkers and barracks’, left over from the war, and refitted to serve as Malfoy’s hideout. A sacrificial altar was waiting between the bunkers, for the ‘festivities’ scheduled for the solstice.
In the middle of the island, was another bunker holding the hostages.
Harry discovered that Draco had actually learned something. Apparently he had little problem with using muggle techniques. Guard dogs with tracking charms wandered the islet.
Evading human guards was easy. Evading dogs was not…until he conjured a few dozen deadly snakes at various places. He cast warming charms on the reptiles and promised them as many guards and dogs as they could eat, and once that was done, the snakes vanished into the brush. Dogs began to vanish into the night. Harry took flight again.
He flew across the island familiarizing himself with its lay-out.
Flying along silently, Harry tracked the guard patrols, making sure they were accurate. They were. The island was sectored into quarters. Each quarter had it’s own patrols and each patrol took fourteen minutes.
Several stops across and around the little atoll, transfiguring things, and planting his little surprises, ensured that this would be quite a surprise for the new dark lord.
Satisfied, he flew toward the little concrete bunker holding the hostages.
****
Harry watched from the bushes, as the security patrol checked on the prison bunker. They exchanged security code words with the guards there, and, having satisfied themselves that all was in order, apparated away.
Harry waited for a few minutes, until the guard’s relaxing, let him know the patrol had passed. He slipped up behind one of the soon to-be-dead guards, slipped a garrote over his head and yanked tight. The fine wire sliced through the man's throat, cutting off any attempt to cry for help, and seconds later he fell kicking as he strangled. Harry was gone already. The next guard in line hadn’t even heard his partner’s muted gasp before he died from he knife thrust up and into his brain from behind. The next patrol shouldn't return for ten minutes, if he'd observed correctly. Harry hauled the dead guards up and using some explosive bolts through each of their shoulders, literally nailed them to the concrete wall.
Done that he calmly wrapped thin thermite wires round the door's heavy steel hinges, covered them with grey clay to mask any light, and set them off.
The door came loose.
He armed his dart gun, and eased into the room.
Inside the bunker, he found twenty-three young women of various ages, from fourteen to twenty-five or so. He watched them carefully for signs of collaborators. There were two women he recognized, right off. Both were purebloods, who Draco would never consider as ‘expendable’, he dispelled his invisibility charm.
"Listen up!" He commanded. Shrieks filled the room as the women there turned to face him. Off in the back, a face he recognized smirked. He raised the pistol and with a quiet 'phutt-phutt', dropped her. More screams sounded as the black haired bitch fell. A second collaborator tried for the wand under her pillow. She also fell as two more darts struck her.
"I’m Harry Potter. I've been sent here to find and retrieve Gabrielle Delacour.”
"‘Arry?" Gabrielle stepped shyly forward. 'Ow do I know it ees you?"
"You promised me a knobber as soon as you learned how, when I pulled your skinny little arse out of the black lake."
Gabrielle flushed a deep crimson, before flinging herself into Harry’s arms. “‘Arry!” she squealed, kissing his face, over and over.
“What did you do to them?" One of the older women asked, pointing to the downed women.
Disengaging the overexcited Veela, Harry replied: "Oh, that. Don’t worry. It’s just a simple neurotoxin. It renders them unconscious within a second." What Harry didn't mention was that the sea snake venom would also render them rather dead almost as quickly. He hated spies and betrayers! Ron had learned that the hard way. Now, they had as well.
“If you’ll look on each of their beds, you’ll find their wands. Since none of you have yours, I can safely assume that means that they weren’t intended for the same fate as you were. They were working for Malefic.”
He took Gabrielle's hand and headed toward the door. "OK. Let's go!"
"Wait!" The same woman called.
"Yeah?"
"Are you just going to leave the rest of us?"
"Umm, yeah. That was the plan."
"How could you do that?"
"Why not?"
"What?"
"I said: Why not? After all, I'm only being paid to collect Gabrielle."
"But who knows what kind of things they'll do to us?" A younger woman squealed.
"Um…I do. But don't worry. It'll 'probably' be over quickly."
"Are they going to sacrifice us?" She moaned.
"Yeah, last I heard."
"And you don't have a problem with that?" Another woman snapped.
"Nope. Listen, you lot got yourselves captured by being careless, why should I pull your arses out of the fire?"
None of them had an answer.
"On the other hand…" Harry grinned. "I could always use more concubines."
Inwardly he began counting: ~5, 4, 3, 2…~
"WHAT!?!"
~Damn! I was off!~
"How could you ask that of us?" She yelled.
"D'you see any better offers?" He countered.
Again, no one had an answer.
"Think of it like this. Your lives will be comfortable and you'll never be eligible for virgin sacrifices again."
Surprisingly, that did the trick. Each woman there, realizing it was better to be a well-cared-for concubine to the famous Harry Potter than to be a sacrifice in some dark ritual, nodded.
"Repeat after me, then. "I swear upon my magic that I will freely join with Harry James Potter as concubine, known as 'Potter's Hotties', assuming all the rights, responsibilities and privileges thereunto, and keeping safe all secrets entrusted to me, until this contract is voided by both myself and Harry James Potter."
Every woman there swore the oath, including Gabrielle. He looked at her questioningly but she formed her lips into an 'O', and slowly bobbed her head up and down. Harry grinned as he accepted her magical promise.
“Is there anybody else here?” He asked, not wanting any ‘collateral damage. A quick headcount ensured him that the twenty-one remaining women were all that were left. He personally checked the small toilet, transfiguring things along the way, and passing by the bodies of the two spies, knelt by one, felt for a pulse to assuage the other girls and smiled as he found her body cooling. He wrote out a quick note, and covering his movement with his rising, stabbed through it and into her body with something invisible.
"How are we going to get away?" One woman asked, flushing in embarrassment at the man she'd just sworn her body to. Harry turned from the thick concrete he'd just transfigured into type four DEMEX.
"Oh, that. We'll use this portkey." He held out a length of coiled rope.
"PORTKEY!?!" The oldest one shrieked.
"Of course! After all, what kind of rescuer would I be if I didn't have a guaranteed escape handy? Hurry up now, the patrol is almost here." He tossed one end of the rope into the crowd.
Outside the concrete shelter, they could hear the pop of apparation. "Oi!” A voice sounded. “What the hell is wrong with you two?"
It took nothing more. All the women grabbed the rope and Harry activated the portkey as the guards outside discovered their compatriots’ unfortunate demises.
****
Harry and the hotties arrived at Potter Manse, to find Hermione waiting.
“Damn, Harry!” She snarked. “When you said ‘harem’ I thought three or four girls! Looks like you’ve got enough here to field two Quidditch teams…plus reserves!” She grinned openly and gathered Gabrielle into her arms, bussing her soundly.
“Hello, Gabrielle. It’s good to see you safe.”
Turning to the others, she called out: “Will you all follow me please. There’s a place where you can freshen up and find a bunk. Starting tomorrow, we’ll reunite as many of you, with your families as we can.”
She led them all away in a businesslike fashion, explaining that the oath Harry had hem swear was real, but there was an escape clause built in. None of them need sacrifice their virginities for the rescue.
Harry chuckled as he doffed his gear and handed it to Dobby, then went into his office. He seated himself behind his desk in his brand-new, black leather, ‘dark lord’ style executive’s chair and activated the monitors on his wall. In one, he saw the transfigured form of Ronald Weasley kicking and braying as his new owner tried to herd him into a barn. He sighed in regret at the necessity. A gentle hand warmed his shoulder. Looking up he found Gabrielle gazing fondly back. “‘E shose zis path, ‘Arry. Nossing you could do, n’est-ce pas?”
“He was still my friend, Gabrielle. That’s what hurts the most. He used to be a decent person.”
“Oui. ‘E was, but he ‘as shanged in recent years, and not for ze better.”
“Yeah.”
****
As Hermione returned, followed by Luna, Neville and Ginny, he switched the feed from another monitor. Together they watched as Draco Malfoy arrived on the scene. His dogs had vanished, and his sacrifices had been stolen, and now, he was going to make his guards pay! He Cruciated one of the dead men until his chief, lieutenant, Theodore Nott, told him they'd been dead for some time. Infuriated by being made to look stupid, he turned his wand on Nott. His tantrum was enough to guarantee that Theodore died in agony.
Kicking the dead minion aside, Malfoy stormed through the doorway, and into the concrete structure. His remaining supporters crowded in behind him. Harry switched over to the two monitoring beads he’d placed in the corners of the chamber.
Two bodies remained. Pansy Parkinson and Marietta Edgecomb. Both were quite dead. A note stuck to Pansy courtesy of a long dagger, told him what he needed to know.
It read:
"Heya Ferret-face.
I win!
Harry."
"POTTER!" Draco shrieked.
"And that's my cue." Harry flipped up a safety cover and pressed a button.
On a tiny, unplottable island southeast of Sudhuroy, a massive explosion, boiled up into the air, fuelled by the more than hundred thousand pounds of DEMEX placed all around the dark lord's hideout. Claymore mines, interspaced between the munitions dumps ensured that anyone who escaped the blasts would die anyway. It wasn't necessary. The island itself became nothing more than scorched and barren rock, protruding a few meters above the Atlantic Ocean.
****
In Harry’s office, Gabrielle pushed Harry’s seat back and knelt before him.
“Gabrielle?” He asked. “What are you doing?”
“I made a promise, ‘Arry.” She smiled up at him. “I keep my promises.”
She undid his pants and stroked him to tumescence then lowered her mouth to his erection.
“Eerp!”
Hermione patted him on the shoulder and smirked: “Just go along with it, Harry.”
Fini.
Sign up to rate and review this story