A/N: If anyone gets the reference to His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman in this chapter, please kindly tell me. Some elements, namely the Phoenix propulsion system are inspired by Battlestar Galactica.
“Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.”
-Winston Churchill
“We’ve been very lucky thus far,” Hermione said, the fear still present on her face.
“About what, Hermione?” Harry asked, reflecting the confused looks on everyone’s faces. What the hell are you talking about, Hermione? Harry thought, annoyed.
Hermione sighed. “When they captured Ginny,” Hermione said, concerned. “They captured a wealth of tactical data on our strength, training, and equipment. If they’ve broken her, which, given Bellatrix Lestrange’s experience with torture is increasingly likely, they could have a complete list of everyone who was a member before June 22nd, 1997, even the older members who we cut out before we even left Hogwarts.”
“You’re implying they’ve broken her,” Harry said, getting deathly serious, incensed at the mere thought. “Ginny’s a strong woman, Hermione, I doubt they’ve broken her,” Ron muttered his agreement next to him getting angry at the thought at well.
Neville, with a look of shock and understanding face, chose this moment to interrupt before things got out of hand.
“With all due respect,” Neville said desperately. “I agree Ginny is very strong, but you’re basing this assumption on loose talk and false hopes, not actual proof. Harry, think, torture combined with drugs, we can hope but I seriously think Ginny could have been broken that first night.”
“I agree,” Luna said, causing everyone’s heads to swivel to face her. “Look how Hermione got Malfoy to talk. Veritaserum works best on people who have suffered physical and mental stress. Draco had suffered physical and mental stress. Draco had suffered the intense physical and mental stress of a combat situation, and so was Ginny on that night.
“Yes.” Harry said, exasperated. This was ridiculous, he thought, irritated. Ginny, his Ginny, would never surrender, and would die before she gave up information that could be used to kill her friends. “But Ginny, like the rest of us, was trained to handle stress, Draco is not.”
“Yes,” Luna said, sounding as serious as she was a week ago during the press conference. “But being trained to handle stress is not the same as it not existing. Ginny was suffering the same mental, and physical stress, it was just affecting her to a far lesser degree. But torture. God, torture is the most painful, physically and mentally, short of childbirth. I mean the stress of the battle may not have been enough, but enough torture would have weakened her to the point where the drugs would have worked easily.”
“She’s right, you know,” Hermione said, sadly. “The Cruciatus curse works by directly stimulating the pain centers of organic life-forms. The curse constantly shifts the stimulation between nerve clusters, keeping the subject in constant pain. Whereas most forms of torture can overwhelm the body, eventually the brain stops feeling any pain, but Ginny will never experience that. She will be kept cognizant of every nanosecond of pain until she is tortured to death or insanity.”
Harry began to cry, right than and there, because he knew she was right. In that moment, he knew what he had to do. “Ready the troops for departure,” Harry said. They were just about to leave when Harry said, sadness in his eyes.
They decided to approach each prospective officer and NCO that would be assigned to them, and tell Colin so he could do the same for the personnel that by right belonged to Ginny. Parvati had been… flattered to say the least when Harry suddenly walked into her tent and offered her the job.
“Thank you, Sir,” Parvati said, standing in her sitting room in her blue nightgown, blushing furiously, but than her face took on a look of confusion when she said, “But why me? I mean surely there are more qualified people around here.”
“You were and still are the most senior member after Luna,” Harry said, putting the metal tab with the two and a half stripes of a Lieutenant Commander in the beautiful young Indian woman hands. “You’re confidant, capable, and besides I feel I still owe you something for not paying attention to you at the Yule Ball.
“Thank you, Sir,” Parvati said. A few minutes later, Harry stood up as the newly-appointed Lieutenant Commander Parvati Patil walked out of her bedroom, with a big smile on her face. Harry couldn’t help but stare briefly, as good as she looked the rest of the time; she looked damn good in uniform. But than again, Harry thought, so does Ginny.
“Lieutenant Commander Parvati Patil reporting for duty, Sir,” Parvati said, saluting with that brightness in her eyes.
Harry returned the salute, saying, “Come with me, Commander, we need to locate the rest of the people on this list as soon as possible, giving her a list Hermione had written of the unit structure Harry was to use. Commander Patil looked over the list and said. “I know where Terry Boot lives, Sir, but for the rest we’ll have to consult the personnel roster.”
”Then let’s walk, Parvati,” Harry said, and they left together, walking out of the tent.
As they walked in the early morning, the sky illuminated by the thousand shades of red and gold of the rising sun, they talked.
“So tell me about you,” Harry asked as they walked through the awakening camp, sentries and other trainees saluting as they walked past, or in being rounded up by Harry’s friends to be reorganized.
“With all due respect, Sir,” Parvati said, sounding annoyed. “Why?”
Harry grabbed her arm to stop them so he could talk. “I consider you a friend, Parvati. Now, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but we’re going to be working together for possibly for a long time, and I want to know more about the woman I’m going to be entrusting with my life.”
“You’re right, of course,” Parvati said, and launched into a diatribe about her life in Birmingham’s Wizarding community, the most ethnically mixed city in the UK. She told them about her parents, her pre-Hogwarts friends, her sister and so on and so forth.
When she was done, Harry responded by telling him about himself; giving her the real story, leaving out the stuff about Horcruxes of course. She learned the truth about the boy who once escorted her to the ball three years ago, not the Rita Skeeter spin designed to create soap opera style love triangles and conspiracies where none existed. And most definitely not the stories told by a government-controlled media trying to suppress non-existent plans for a military coup.
They kept talking like this until they reached Terry Boot’s tent and asked him what he wanted. Not surprisingly, Terry eagerly accepted his new title. And for some unknown reason Hermione had given Kevin Prewitt, the man he’d nearly beaten senseless when he made a pass at Ginny, as his First Lieutenant.
“I’m sorry about that, sir,” Kevin said contritely when he cornered her snogging his girlfriend against a tree near the copse and promptly drove her off to do something else. “It was a tasteless joke and I really am sorry.”
Harry, who had forgiven him already, smiled jovially before saying, “I forgive you” and walking off with him. They then promptly left to finish off forming their unit for the coming battle.
A few hours later, once every unit was formed up and ready to go, Harry and his friends met again in the Burrow’s attic. The question on everyone’s mind at the meeting, however insensitive they knew it was, was “who do we evacuate first. It was mid-morning and the sunlight poured through the small, round attic window, eliminating the need for candles.
“I believe we should evacuate the family members of everyone on our list that is actually here first,” Hermione said matter-of-factly, amazingly maintaining her composure despite the urgency of the situation. “Starting with the family members of our staff because Death Eaters tend to focus on high-profile targets and work their way down in operations like this.”
“The question is,” Ron said, sitting back in his chair and steepling his fingers. “Which of our family members aren’t here?”
“Well,” Hermione said, thinking about it. “There’s Neville’s grandmother, the Dursleys, and Luna’s father.” Harry looked at Neville and Luna who each looked terribly worried about there respective relations.
“We can pick up Luna’s father immediately,” Hermione said. “And, quite frankly, the Dursleys would commit collective suicide before stepping foot in a Wizarding household.”
“I’d imagine they’d be safer at Privet Drive,” Harry said, not relishing the thought of having the Dursleys strutting around like peacocks, trying to prove their superiority to the “freaks” surrounding them for however long it took before someone killed them, or the Order got them into safe housing. “Dumbledore put extremely powerful magical protections on that house; though I’m not entirely sure that it’ll work for them so I’ll have to go ask if they’ll come; which I think I’ll go handle right now, so if you excuse me, I’m going to have Remus Side-Along Apparate with me to Privet Drive. We’ll meet hear again as soon as I return. Luna while I’m gone you should bring your father here. Hermione, go talk to Professor MacGonagall and see if you can arrange some safe housing for these people for the time being.”
Luna and Hermione acknowledged there instructions and the meeting promptly broke up as everyone left.
Thirty minutes later, everyone reconvened in the attic to give their reports. Harry was personally quite happy and relieved about the news he and Remus had discovered about the Dursleys, but he wanted to here about what happened with Luna’s father and MacGonagall before he told them.
“I’ve talked to Professor MacGonagall,” Hermione said. “She’s willing to find safe housing for the families of everyone.”
Harry, and everyone else, breathed a sigh of relief that the Weasleys weren’t going to have to take on more people for longer than necessary.
“I’ve picked up my father,” Luna said dreamily. “And he’s being processed for safe housing as we speak.
“And the Dursleys,” Harry said happily, “have apparently decided to go on vacation in Majorca for the summer. They’ll be back September 1st so when I finally have to leave I won’t have to deal with them. “Speaking of which, how are things progressing on our new base so we can finally get the hell off Weasley property, because I’m beginning to think they’re sick of all of us.”
“Tell me about it,” Hermione said wryly. “Well, I just talked to Larkin & Burkes, the construction company handling the task, and they said they won’t be completed for at least another couple weeks.”
“I see,” Harry said. Looks like we’ll be on Weasley property for awhile longer, Harry thought.
“I was planning on using the Phoenixes to pick up the evacuees,” Hermione said. “Using long-range transit system the Weasleys developed, we should be able to use Portkeys to take the Phoenixes anywhere on Earth.” The Portkey Jump system was one of the more interesting systems the Weasleys developed for the Phoenix. Basically it used Portkeys released internally to take you any place you wanted to go on Earth; but there were serious limitations though, as Luna was about to point out.
“But if I remember correctly,” Luna said. “The technology has some serious limitations.”
Hermione sighed and said, “Yes, the Phoenixes hull dissipates most of the energies emitted by Portkeys; limiting its jump range to only a few hundred miles a jump.”
“Meaning it will take quite a few of these just to traverse the breath of the country to get where we need to go,” Ron said.
“I forget, were these things shielded against Muggle detection?” Neville asked.
“That’s another problem,” Hermione said. “Certain spells, namely Anti-Muggle Detection spells simply will not affect these ships. Muggles will be able to see these things easily.”
“What about the Invisibility Booster my Dad developed?” Ron asked. “It allowed us to remain invisible,” Ron said hopefully.
“When it worked,” Harry grumbled the memories of that little jaunt through hell still fresh in his mind.
“Well there are Invisibility Boosters on the Phoenixes,” Hermione said. “But that leaves another problem. They work by generating a large energy field capable of bending visible light. It’s not powerful enough to bend radar or other electronic emissions. Air traffic control towers banging away with active radar can see these things easily. Passive sensors work by detecting infrared and EM signatures, which the Invisibility Booster was not designed to block and can’t.”
“In other words?” Neville asked.
“in other words,” Luna said, answering her boyfriends question. “These heat and EM signatures will light up any Muggle heat and EM signatures like a Christmas tree, correct?”
“Correct,” Hermione said gravely.
“Remind me again why we pushed for this project?” Ron asked this look of incredulity on his face. He had a point; the long list of weaknesses wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for the amount of money spent on the project.
“Because Portkeys and Apparation come with the risk of entering into an area swarming with hostiles, Sir,” Luna said. “This allows us to reconnoiter an area before landing troops at least.”
“She’s right,” Harry said. “Now I believe we should evacuate Neville’s family first.”
“I want that job, Sir,” Luna said, causing everyone’s head to swivel toward her, especially Neville, whom naturally everyone assumed, Harry included, wanted the job. “I want to meet her.”
Figured that family introduction was coming, Harry thought. I just wish it came about at a different time in human history.
“All right,” Harry said. “Now, bearing in mind Luna evacuating the Longbottoms, I want to evacuate the families of Lavender Brown, Susan Bones, Michael Corner, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and Seamus Finnegan. Of course none of this would be necessary if they had been evacuated along with the rest a month ago, Harry thought.
“We can each take that assignment in order of seniority,” Harry said.
“We can get them to tell us where their families are located,” Hermione said. “The Phoenixes onboard Muggle computers have complete atlases to help us get their.” Fred and George were told about computers by Hermione and couldn’t get them onboard fast enough.
“Now that we have our assignments we should go,” Harry said. “Dismissed.”
They all left with the exception of Neville and Luna who moved over to the window, and stared out onto the grounds both thinking that the other might not come back alive from this mission.
“You’re family lives in Oxford, correct?” Luna asked anxiously, trying to keep her mind off the coming mission, which may or may not involve combat.
“Yes,” Neville said, sadness and worry for his lover evident in his voice. “She lives about twenty kilometers outside the city in a big old Victorian house, surrounded by a massive stone wall. It’s a house only our people can see. You can’t miss it. Bring her back alive, please,” Neville said.
“I promise,” Luna said, trying to reassure him.
“She’s very old,” Neville said anxiously. “She has a heart condition, and that means she has distinct medical needs.”
“Neville,” Luna said, hugging him. “Calm down, we’ll both come back.”
“I know you will,” Neville said that. Then, impulsively he kissed her and said, “I love you, please, promise me you’ll come back to me.”
“I promise I’ll come back to you,” Luna said. Then she impulsively kissed him, hard, on the lips. In that moment she realized how much she needed Neville, his love, his putting up with what others considered crap, (despite the fact that he was creeped out by some of her more bizarre rants), the fact that he never stopped loving her, the nights they spent in each others arms were only the icing on the cake, she just loved him.
Five minutes later, Lieutenant Commander Luna Lovegood, fully uniformed, in uniform, Shield Cloaks, and a leather utility belt with Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder and Decoy Detonators clipped onto it, strode over to the landing area, a cleared patch of hard earth on the western edge of Weasley property. Right in front of it, she walked headlong into her XO, Lieutenant Ernie Macmillan.
Macmillan hastily saluted, saying, “Good to see you, Sir, we have a lot of work ahead of us today.”
“I explained that over the comm.- mirror” Luna said, annoyed, returning the salute. She walked up and stood in front of the fifty people, including the officers assigned to her. She looked at the ranks, everyone from the privates to the sergeants, and they held that same look, that same lack of experience in battle, or even training. These people are still children, she thought incredulously. They aren’t ready for this, but I suppose I have no choice.
“Listen up!” Luna said. “We are under orders to go to Commander Longbottom’s house in the Oxford area and evacuate his grandmother and anyone else there, is that understood?”
“Yes, Sir!!” They said in unison, amazingly enough
“Let’s go then,” Luna said. And her troops broke and ran for their ships, their pilots already inside and powering them up. Then she looked around, off in the distance, everyone else was loading up and powering up. Then it hit her, for the first time, the D.A. was going off to war. The attack on Marseilles didn’t even count because that was a surprise attack on us, Luna thought. No, we are actually going to war. Glumly, she boarded her Phoenix and they lifted off. When they were hovering in the air above the grounds, the co-pilot, a pretty young white woman a standard gray flight suit and helmet, punched up the precise longitude and latitude of Oxford, UK. When she was done, they all heard something drop and come into contact with the Phoenix’s hull and her Phoenix tunneled through hyperspace in a short hop to about two hundred miles between Ottery-St. Catchpole and Oxford.
“Jump 01 complete,” the pilot, a young black man who spoke with a Canadian accent, “executing Jump 02 in five, four, three, two, one, mark!” Another object impacted the hull and the ship executed another jump. Four jumps later, they hovered over Oxford’s central business district, very low in the sky.
“Why are we so low to the ground, Lieutenant?” Luna asked the pilot. They were a little low for her tastes.
“We’re under the radar of Oxford airport’s ATC tower, Sir,” the co-pilot responded in a Midwestern American accent, probably from Oklahoma, “and any RAF systems.”
“Is the Invisibility Booster active?” Luna asked.
“Checking,” the co-pilot, a slim young red-head with brown eyes said, checking on her console to make sue everyone was there based on the presence of signals from their IFF transponders. “Yes, Sir, they’re all here.”
“Good,” Luna said. Turning to the pilot she said, “Contact the other ships, tell them to fall ion on your six and go twenty kilometers north of the city.” The general direction of Neville’s grandmother’s house, she thought.
I hope we’re not too late, she thought a second later.
Ten minutes later, they noticed a dilapidated old Victorian house with dark, faded wood walls and a green roof where the paint was chipping. From above they noticed that Muggles paid it no heed as they walked past, a sure sign that wizards lived there. However just to be sure, Luna and her unit landed, disembarked and struck forward through a set of woods to the house. The soldier on point, out thirty meters ahead, shot her arm up and the platoon rushed up and joined her.
The brown haired, green-eyed private turned to her and said, “Sir, I think this is the place.”
“I think it is too, Private,” Luna said. “I want to do this from the front, Private rejoin your squad and tell Sergeant Zhang to keep watch here in the back.”
“Yes, Sir,” the private said as she ran off to her sergeant, Zhang Li would stay here with her squad and keep watch on the back.
“Lieutenant,” she said, turning to Ernie Macmillan. “Take another squad and stay here. Alert me immediately if there are any problems.”
“Of course, Sir,” Macmillan said. “Tora!”
“Sir!” the American sergeant, an Italian-American from New York, called back in a New York accent.
“Stay here with us!” Macmillan called.
“Yes, Sir,” she said. “Turning to her corporals she said, “Cartano, Weinstein, take your fire teams and let’s go!”
The young black man and the young white woman with blonde hair grabbed their fire teams and joined the sergeant ast hey held their positions. Luna took Smith and the rest of the unit and stalked around over to the front of the house. At the front door, Luna held up her arm in fist and they stopped and took up defensive positions around her.
“Stay here, everyone,” she called. “I’ll handle this.” She walked up to the front door, a green painted thing that was chipped in several places, and knocked on the door, using an old brass knocker.
A few minutes later, a gray-haired woman in a faded green dress opened the door, eyes widening in shock at the people at the door.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?!” She said, shocked going for her wand. Luna quickly raised her arm to keep her from attacking.
“Easy,” Luna said. “Are you Augusta Longbottom?”
“Yes,” she said suspiciously.
“I’m with the D.A., we are evacuating the family members of our personnel from the British Isles; for their own safety ma’am.”
“How do I know you’re genuine?” Augusta asked. “For all I know you could be Death Eaters here to slaughter me and my guests.”
“If we were Death Eaters,” Luna said. “We wouldn’t care about such pleasantries as knocking on the door, we’d simply attack.”
Augusta sighed, and she said, “You have a point. Come in, then.”
After ordering Smith to stay with the unit outside and keep an eye on things, she accompanied Mrs. Longbottom. As soon as they were in the sitting room, she sat down in a faded blue armchair in front of their fireplace and asked, “You have guests?”
“Yes,” Augusta said. “All my friends from the area are here. We were just sitting down to lunch.”
“I see,” Luna said. “Well tell them to report to the squads out back, they will set up Portkeys to take them out of here.” They had gotten permission to make Portkeys earlier in the week from the government.
“And what will happen to us, then?” Mrs. Longbottom asked.
“We have a fully functioning field hospital to handle any medical problems,” Luna said. That was true, the doctors had pressed for more equipment so they could actually do there jobs and the Ministry had provided the Muggle equipment, meds, and instruments they needed. They had originally offered them Healers, but Harry made the sound and logical argument that the Healers were more effective treating the civilians that would almost certainly be wounded in the coming days, and being forced to care for wounded soldiers and civilians would only cut down on their effectiveness. And besides, Harry had seemed to have absolute faith in the doctors to treat his men. Fortunately, three of the Muggle-born families were doctors and nurses at hospitals and they were going to co-opt their services. “And they will be processed for safe housing.”
“Okay,” Augusta said. “What’s your name by the way?”
“Lieutenant Commander Luna Lovegood, ma’am,” She said.
“Well, I’ll go tell them.” Augusta said, leaving for her dining room. When she came back into the room she said, “Well they’re leaving. Oh, and I thought I recognized you; you’re the D.A. press secretary. What are you doing out here?”
“Well,” the young commander said. “Press secretary is just part of my duties. I’m still a combat officer and I’m still expected to lead troops into combat.”
“So how’s my grandson,” Augusta said. “Is he still alive?”
“Of course he’s still alive,” Luna said, “We would have notified you immediately if he had died. Than she did what she had been planning since she requested this assignment. “After all,” she said. “I should know, I am his girlfriend.”
Augusta’s eyes widened, “You’re his girlfriend,” she said incredulously. “How long has this been going on?”
“About a month,” Luna said, proudly.
“How’s he treated you?” Mrs. Longbottom asked.
“Oh, he’s treated me fine,” Lovegood said. “In fact he saved my life during the Battle of Marseilles.”
“How so?” Augusta asked curious.
“My squad and I were pinned down near a stand of trees at the edge of the woods,” Luna said, her voice breaking over something she’d never discussed before. “I ordered my unit into the woods to take cover so we wouldn’t be killed. Most of my squad got into the woods, but I was surrounded. There was a wall of Death Eaters between me and the squads under Ginny and Neville. My unit tried to reach me but they were driven back repeatedly. Suddenly the Death Eaters in front of me were hit by Reductor curses, our standard battlefield weapon.”
“Reductor curses?” Augusta said, surprised. “But those…”
“Those were used during the desperation stage of the last war, when we realized non-lethal force wasn’t getting the Ministry anywhere? Have you ever seen a Reductor curses effect on the human body?”
“No,” Augusta said.
“The reason they can break through human flesh with the power of a Muggle assault rifle,” Luna said leaning forward in her chair; “Is because the higher energies released cause to matter to dissociate, very effectively.”
“I see,” Augusta said. “He killed for you. Is that why you fell in love with him, because he saved your life?”
“No,” Luna said, shocked. “Hell, no. We were involved long before that. If you remember what I said correctly, we were involved since May.”
“Oh,” Augusta said. “I was only thinking that this was one of those deep psychological issues that aren’t real love I always here about.”
“I love him,” Mrs. Longbottom,” Luna said. “Don’t you dare doubt that, not even for an instant.” The fierceness in her voice, her eyes, was apparently enough because she heard her say,
“All right, I believe you,” and she held out her hand for Luna to shake. Luna took it and shook her hand.
“Now,” Luna said. “You should join the evacuations.”
“That I’ll do,” Augusta said. “It was nice meeting someone my grandson obviously cares about so deeply.”
“It was nice meeting you too,” Luna said.
“Goodbye,” Augusta said, and she walked out of the room.
“Goodbye,” Luna said. A moment later Sergeant Zhang walked into the room.
“Excuse me, sir,” the young Chinese-American woman about Harry’s age said.
“Yes, Sergeant?” Luna asked.
“We’ve finished evacuating them by Portkey, Sir,” she said. “We can go home ourselves.”
“That’s a good idea, Sergeant,” Luna said. “Go out back and tell Lieutenant Macmillan to take the squads, including yours and return to the front of the house.”
“Yes, Commander,” Luna said. They exchanged salutes and she walked out. Lieutenant Commander Luna Lovegood got out of the armchair she had been sitting in and walked out to see as sight she didn’t like. When she walked out everyone was staring at a massive plume of smoke billowing out of the sky to the south.
“Oh, my God,” Luna said, worried.
“Commander,” Macmillan said, worry lacing his voice, “I was just about to come get you. Apparently-.”
“I’m well aware of what’s probably going on,” Luna said. “Death Eaters have probably launched attacks into Oxford.”
“Yes, Sir,” Ernie said fearfully.
“Everyone back to the Phoenixes,” Luna said. “And hurry!”
As everyone rushed back to the Phoenix’s, Luna thought, Thank God, we got everyone out before this crap hit the fan.
When they got aboard she ordered the co-pilot, Second Lieutenant Lisa Desoto, to try to raise the other units in the probable event they needed reinforcements. At the same time she ordered the pilot to contact the other transports, telling them to lift off and move at full speed for Oxford,
About halfway through the ten minute trip to Oxford, Desoto said, “Sir, I’m getting some very interesting wireless traffic concerning what’s going on in Oxford and elsewhere.”
“How so?” Luna asked.
“Well, sir,” Desoto said. “I’m receiving reports that something is disrupting the satellite uplinks of major new agencies both British and International: BBC News, Sky News, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, they’re all being disrupted.”
“The response by the British military?,” Luna asked.
“Hang on,” she said. “There’s a lot of coded traffic on those channels, sir. I can’t tell you anything specific, because it’s all coded, but judging by the sheer amount of traffic I’m picking up, the Death Eaters have gotten someone’s attention.” A moment later she pulled the earpiece she had in her ear out and turned to her saying, with a look of fear on her face. “Sir, the way this is going, the Death Eaters may have just exposed our world.”
Damn it, Luna said. Aloud, however she said, “I’m sell aware of the situation, Lieutenant. Have you managed to raise Harry or the others?”
“No, Sir,” Desoto said.
“Keep trying,” Luna said. Damn it, I need to contact them, let them know what’s going down. I need to warn Neville- than realization and a sense of dread and fear for him took hold as she had never felt before, even in all the fighting in London and France.
Neville, Luna thought. Oh, God, Neville this has to be part of a larger operation. That’s why I can’t reach you, if they killed you. Unable to bear it, she lost her composure and walked into the passenger compartment, and sat down, tears silently steaming down her face as she thought of the man who had been her lover for the past summer dying hundreds of miles away, far beyond her aid and assistance.
Suddenly, moments later, Lieutenant Desoto turned and said, “Sir, I’m getting a response to my hails.” She pushed her headset closer to her ears. Turning around, she said. “Sir, it’s Commander Longbottom on the radio, he’s requesting to speak to you, he says it’s urgent.”
Luna was over there in a flash, taking the communications headset from Lieutenant Desoto’s ears, she said, “Nev, it that you?”
“Yes, it’s me,” Neville said, sounding relieved. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, sweetie,” Luna said. “Where are you?”
“Deploying my troops into Oxford,” Neville said. “Where are you?”
“On our way,” she said. “We couldn’t risk the jump. We can’t exactly fine tune distance on these things, so even if we jumped for Oxford, as close as we are we would’ve ended up nearly a hundred miles past it.”
“Understood,” Neville said.
“What’s your situation, Neville?” Luna asked.
“North Oxford’s a wreck, that’s for sure,” Neville responded a moment later. “There are fires everywhere, and we’ve been fighting since the moment we landed. Get here, land in the Botanic Garden and be prepared for trouble.”
“Yes, Sir,” Luna said.
“Longbottom out,” Neville said
A few moments later, they arrived over a North Oxford in flames. There were fires on every building and even a few on the trees of the Botanic Garden, where incidentally Luna noticed five Phoenixes on the ground.”
“Lieutenant,” Luna called to her co-pilot.
“Contact our Phoenixes and tell them to land.”
“Yes, sir,” Desoto said. After ordering her pilots to land, she heard the loud crunch of collapsing wood.
“What the hell was that?” Luna asked.
“We can’t tell without getting out, Sir,” Desoto said. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll check,” Luna said, “I’m getting out anyway. A moment later, after her officers and squad dismounted she stuck her head back in and said, “Well, Lieutenant, you landed on top of a wooden bench.”
“Sorry,” the pilot, Lieutenant Dunbar said, but Luna didn’t hear him. She was already running full speed up to Neville Longbottom, who was holed up beyond a tipped over car.
“Neville!” Luna shouted. Neville turned around, joy in his eyes, and grabbed and kissed her than and there.
After a moment, Luna disengaged from him and said, “We’ll have plenty of time for this later, me and my personnel are here to help.”
“Right,” Neville said. “Well we’re…” And Neville explained the entire situation, ugly as it was.
When he was done, Luna said, “Let’s get to work.
Finally at 1900 hours it was all over. All their units returned to the Burrow, tired as hell. The Ministry had intervened by keeping disrupting the satellite uplinks, obliviating the Muggle witnesses and having the Prime Minister recall all the British military units responding to the attacks. No one suffered fatalities, thankfully, but they did suffer wounded, which the field hospital was able to take care of. However, they only achieved a few of their goals, and there were still dozens of people who needed to be evacuated.
A/N: Next chapter, you finally discover what happens with Viktor Krum and the message Hermione received after Marseiles.
Oh, and you may be wondering why no one on the D.A. side has died yet, but suffice it to say there will be deaths coming towards the end of this chapter.
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