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Chapter 5: The Battle of Hogwart's

A/N Just a quick note, please rate the story, for better or for worse, and if you have the time please review.

Thanx in advance

N!

"Expecto Patronum!"

The defenders knew to cast their patroni while the dementors were still a good distance away. Each patronus could travel for several kilometers before fading out and a skilled caster could keep more than one going at a time.

Harry on his best day managed to cast three simultaneous stag patroni.

"Happy thoughts people!"

His first kiss, no, that won't work; it was with that hosepipe Cho. His second kiss, no good, that was Ginny and right now she was anything but a positive emotion. Seeing Sirius back in Hogsmeade, no, that eventually led to his death. Dumbledore's unwavering faith in him, shite no, Dumbledore was dead because of his unwavering faith in him. Merlin's balls he was one pathetic looser!

"Harry, we're all behind you."

He looked at Hermione and Ron and Neville and Luna and Dean and Fred and George and both Creevey brothers and the Patil twins and he smiled "Expecto Patronum!"

A massive golden stag erupted from Harry's wand, followed by another and yet another. The golden patroni charged into the mass of dementors cutting a wide swath through the sea of black.

The lead stag was so powerful that dementors weren't simply chased off, they were shredded, trampled, their essences obliterated wherever the cloven hooves fell.

"You need to show me how you do that sometime Mr. Potter" Harry looked to his right and was shocked to see Rufus Scrimgeour, Minster of Magic on the battlements.

"Minister, you shouldn't be here!"

"That's where you're wrong Harry; this is exactly where I need to be. I won't be able to show my face in public anymore if I don't stand against that dark bastard and this is where the fight is!"

_____ooo000ooo_____

Voldemort was shocked, first by the fact that the lead patroni were golden rather than silver, second by the fact the dementors were being slaughtered wholesale. He had expected to lose some troops, but wasn't used to seeing dementors falling like so many autumn leaves.

"Enjoy your small victories Harry" the dark lord mused, "your patroni can only last a few pitiful minutes, and I have an inexhaustible supply of dementors!"

_____ooo000ooo_____

On the wall Ron was shouting "get your patroni to herd the dementors toward Harry's golden stags, otherwise they'll just regroup and attack again.

Like so many border collies the patroni did just that, funneling the dementors toward their doom.

Problem was the patroni were fading, and the dementors were numbered like the blades of grass on the hills.

Something was nagging in the back of Harry's mind, what was it - it was something important; Draco? Yes, Draco!

"Use the elves" he had said.

"Dobby!"

The small elf popped into view just in front of Harry "please master Harry Potter sir, please let us be helping youz!"

"Can you use your magic against the dementors?"

"Yes Harry Potter sir! Wez able to fight bad demon-torz!"

"Get every house elf up here Dobby! We need you!"

"Master Potter must be commanding us!"

"Yes, whatever you say Dobby, I order you to fight the demon-torz alongside the wizards and witches!"

Dobby smiled grimly and popped away.

"Hurry back little friend" he urged.

ooo000ooo

Voldemort formed a torus of power, himself at the center, his death eaters, almost two-hundred strong enclosed within the doughnut shape. While the torus remained intact he and his troops were essentially weightless and could easily be lifted over the wall by the surrounding mass of hovering dementors. The idea was to move to a part of the wall were the defenders were weakening and then simply drift over the walls to land on the battlements and in the courtyard below.

The dark lord directed the main force of semi-corporeal demons to the wall where most of the patroni were originating, then, under cover of darkness he skirted his formation to the battlements overlooking the lake. He assumed, correctly, that none of the defenders expected an attack from that quarter.

There were only three defenders on that wall who could even produce a weak patronus, Lavender Brown, and the two Hufflepuff prefects, Daniel Stebbins and Lori Baxter. They were quickly overwhelmed, still, Lavender's Labrador retriever patronus held off the inevitable for just a few precious seconds. Knowing she was lost Lavender proved she was sorted into the proper house by directing her retriever to find Harry, to tell him Voldemort was in the castle. As the silver Labrador scampered off two dementors seized the Gryffindor defender.

Dementors began flowing into the castle over the undefended wall, sucking the life forces, the consciousnesses, the very souls from the defenders.

Half a dozen dementors overwhelmed the Creeveys before they even knew they were there, Colin's last coherent word was a strangled "Harry!"

Padma, Parvati, George and Fred directed their patroni to stand in front of them as they stood back to back, a stalemate that they knew they would soon lose because a patronus could only exist for a very few minutes. Scrimgeour stood with his back to the wall directing his lion to circle the twins, ensuring their safety for as long as he could.

"If we get out of this I'm going to ask you to marry me!" George shouted to the Patil twins.

"Which one of us?" Padma asked.

"Which ever one of you says yes first!"

The Patil twin's Shetland pony patroni doubled in both size and number.

Harry was beginning to weaken, the strain of maintaining three powerful corporeal stags was draining his magic.

Lavender's retriever appeared before him and in her voice said "Voldemort and death eaters are on the lakeside wall!"

ooo000ooo

Neville Longbottom was on his broom again looking for wounded that he could help, he had already snatched three unconscious defenders away from dementors before they could be kissed and was physically and magically exhausted. His exhaustion evaporated when he spied death eaters being levitated down from the battlements, there was no mistaking the witch in charge of the levitation charm for anyone else; it was Bellatrix Lestrange. He hovered a little closer, staying away from castle lights, his dark robes covering him in the shadows. He waited until the witch had a good two dozen DEs high in the air then sent a powerful bludgeoning hex her way. Into that hex he placed all the anger and frustration that he had endured over the years, the memory of what that bitch had done to his parents. Little wonder the curse smacked her like a giant's hand pulverizing her against the stone inner wall. As for the two dozen death eaters? Well, they couldn't very well levitate themselves. They fell screaming to the ground where the least of the injuries were compound fractures of both legs. Dementors swooped down and rendered them soulless husks.

Neville surveyed the courtyard and could find no one in immediate need of his help so he flew back to the great hall where Madame Pomfrey was already transfiguring tables and benches into rows upon rows of hospital beds, assisted by Horace Slughorn, who also had half a dozen large cauldrons brewing on the raised stage where the professors usually took their meals. Two dozen first years were helping wherever they could. Neville heard a strangled sob near the wall and looked behind a tapestry to find a tiny Hufflepuff girl cowering in fear; she yelped as he pulled back the tapestry.

"Hey sweetheart, it's okay . . ."

The little girl with stringy dish blonde hair screwed up her face and bawled "no, it's not okay, don't ya feel it, it's like, it's like . . ."

"It's like you'll never be happy again."

That shocked her in to silence, and she nodded.

"It's what they do, they suck all the hope and joy and happiness out of us" he explained, then he touched the side of his nose with his fingertip and said conspiratorially, "but I know a secret."

"What's that?" she asked, wide eyed.

"All you need is a happy thought to drive them off!"

She looked down and began to sob.

"What's your happiest thought?"

The little girl shook her head.

"No happy thoughts, not one?"

She drew her knees to her chest and began to shudder.

"How about your family, your mum and dad?"

She looked up and said "Me mum hates me, and I don't have a dad."

"Your mum doesn't hate you . . ."

"She does, I hafta stay with me Gran cause mum can't have a boyfriend with me around!"

Neville changed the subject, "how about getting your Hogwart's letter, wasn't that a good thing?"

Her face softened, "yeah, that was the best ever! Me Gran was so happy, they all thought I was a squib, an all of a sudden I get an owl with me letter!"

"What's your name?"

"Amanda Stevens, but everyone calls me Mandy."

"Amanda, do me a favor?"

The little girl nodded.

"Take your wand and point it up and say lumos!"

"Lumos!"

A bright light came from the wand tip.

"Great, now think about getting your letter, and how you felt, okay, got it?"

She nodded

Now do it again.

"Lumos!"

The light was so bright that they both had to shield their eyes.

"Excellent, now here is what you have to do, get as many of the firsties as you can over here and teach them this trick, it's important, because the dementors can't stand bright lights and yours is the brightest I've seen in a very long time. If a dementor tries to get in you and your friends hit him with the light, okay?"

Amanda threw her arms around the tall boy's neck and hugged him hard before running off to gather up her classmates.

ooo000ooo

Back on the wall Harry yelled over to his best friends, "I have to go to the lakeside wall, keep everyone on task here.

"Take care mate," Ron called back.

"Be careful Harry!" Hermione warned.

Ron and Hermione were amazed that the golden stag patroni continued to fight even without Harry's direct control; they continued herding the soul-suckers to their doom. They were so intent on what was going on outside the walls they failed to see what was happening behind them and were stunned from behind by a squad of death eaters running across the courtyard. The unconscious Gryffindors were immediately set upon by two hungry dementors.

Harry arrived at the poorly defended wall and saw sheer pandemonium. Death eaters were stunning people on the walls and down in the courtyard, then letting the dementors feed, it was a sickening spectacle. The DEs obviously had the upper hand, firing deadly hexes from beneath and behind the semi-corporeal demons, but in spite of this the castle defenders were not giving up; they found what cover they could among the rubble even using the bodies of the fallen. Members of the Order and the DA were giving as good as they got, and better, many of the wounded battled on until they were overcome by death or dementor.

"Riddle! It's not enough for you to take their lives you motherless bastard, you have to steal their souls too?"

"Ah Harry, ready to continue our lesson; the one we started so many years ago?"

"It ends here, Riddle, tonight!"

"So it does."

Voldemort knew he was a master of magic, with or without a wand, and he knew he needed to use every trick he could think of to finish Potter off for good and all. As he sent a blasting curse from his wand he summoned stones from the castle wall to crush Harry in the center, but the young man was nimble and quick.

Harry was using all the combat moves he had learned from the sergeants, plus a special trick taught by Sergeant Barlongo; 'quick-time' combat.

For a precious few moments Harry could speed up time in his personal space - the effect was to make everything around him appear to move in slow motion, therefore he could hear the rocks breaking away from the stone battlements and actually see the bombardia heading his way. It was a fairly simple job to avoid both.

While in his accelerated state Harry fired off several spell chains, "assaluto, reducto, sectum sempra, bombardia!"

Voldemort's form was battered, twisted, sliced and blown backwards off the battlements, where he landed cat-like on the courtyard below.

"That hurt Harry, now I will have to hurt you; avada kedavra"

The killing curse was directed not at Harry, but to the battlements where it blew through a patronus, dropping a tall red-headed defender.

"I believe that was a Weasley, Harry. You have feelings for them do you not? I know one of them, the little girl, had feelings for you once upon a time."

"Who do you care about you worthless fuck; who do you have worth caring for?"

"Why, no one Harry, and that is my greatest strength. No one can be used against me - your stupid sentimentality is your greatest weakness!"

There was an unearthly howl coming as if from ten thousand voices. Dementors appeared to implode all around the castle. The hundred or so house elves of Hogwart's were casting spells on all the soul-sucking demons they could see.

The screeching distracted Harry and the dark lord smiled and raised his wand.

Harry felt rather than heard the crucio coming his way; he accelerated himself again and stepped into the path of a pulverizing hex, damn, snake face learned fast! He twisted and dove but the edge of the powerful curse shattered the lower bones of his right leg and foot. The pain was enough to blind him but he refused to cry out.

He applied an emergency first-aid charm, a temporary fix at best, to splint his leg, ankle and foot, so that he could still move. Harry returned a circular cutting curse that sliced deeply into Voldemort's neck, forcing the snark lord to apply his own emergency healing spell.

In spite of his injury Harry got to his feet quickly and put a physical shield of stone and mortar between himself and the AK heading his way. The deadly curse shattered the shield but protected Harry, unfortunately his choice of shielding materials cost him his glasses as stone shards shattered his frames and lenses - the skin of his face was shred, especially around his eyes; only the purest of dumb luck protected his eyes from the shrapnel.

Harry was fumbling for his spare pair when he felt his arms suddenly stuck to his sides and his legs bound together.

"Enough boy, time to die; avada - "

Powerful reductor curses came at Voldemort from four different directions; the force of the hexes picked up the dark lord like a rag doll and flung him against the wall halfway up the stairs to the battlements.

"You shall not harm Harry Potter!"

Dobby stood before Harry, both his hands extended as he threw the dark lord against the wall again, and again. With just a glance the house elf released Harry from his bonds.

"Harry Potter, we shall deal with the dementors now, you must go to your friends; it may already be too late . . ."

Harry was shocked at the lack of 'elf-speak' coming from his diminutive friend, but heard what Dobby was saying. He stumbled up the steps as fast as his shattered bones would allow, past Voldemort's battered and broken body and found dementors floating over the prone forms of Hermione and Ron.

"No!" Harry screamed and he threw his hands straight out in front of him and the nearest dementor, the one hovering over Ron burst into flame and began to writhe in apparent agony, Harry turned his glare to the other dementor who quickly dove over the battlements and away from the wall.

Harry ran to his two best friends, "oh no, oh no, oh please by all that's holy no!"

Neither Ron nor Hermione were there anymore. Their essences, their souls, everything that made them special, unique, them was gone.

"Oh what a pity, I would have liked to have killed the dirt vein myself."

It just wasn't fair. Couldn't that miserable snake shite just fuckin' die already?

Dobby appeared between Harry and the dark lord again.

"You shall not harm Harry Potter!"

"Harm him? You pathetic little vermin, I've destroyed him! Just look."

And Dobby did.

Harry Potter was seated on the cold stone deck of the rampart, one knee bent, his splinted leg straight. He was cradling Hermione's unresponsive head against his chest rocking back and forth. With tear filled eyes he looked up to Voldemort and simply said, "Kill me."