Lightning and War

Battles Dawn

Harry took a long step forwards, his eyes on the fence in front of him. It was made of what looked like frozen, pearly magic, forced to remain in the shape of delicately-arched points and gates ornamented with swirling curlicues of mist. One of the gates, right in front of him, stood swung back against the fence, leaving him a path inside the circle the fence made.

And coming through the gate right opposite him was Dumbledore’s emissary.

You can do this, Harry reminded himself, and strode in.

The emissary was a woman Harry didn’t know, with long, thick blonde hair braided back so that it trailed in a cable down her shoulder and the Order of the Phoenix brand on her cheek. She came to a stop and nodded briskly to Harry. “You are one of the Knights of Walpurgis?”

“In a way. My name’s Harry Potter. I’m Tom Potter’s husband.”

The woman paused, as though wrong-footed. Maybe they didn’t expect me or Tom to come ourselves, because Albus wouldn’t come in person, Harry thought, and spread his magic out around him so that he would be alerted the minute someone moved. He wouldn’t put it past the Order to try an assassination attempt right now.

“I was told to negotiate with the Knights of Walpurgis.”

Harry hid a silent sigh. He really hated the lack of independence that Dumbledore’s followers had. Right now, it meant this woman obviously had no idea how to deal with an unexpected complication. “I am one of the leaders of the Knights of Walpurgis.”

After a long, silent moment, when the woman seemed to be consulting whatever orders Dumbledore had implanted in her head, she nodded as if that was acceptable. “Very well. Then you should know that we will offer peace terms for the Knights if the Potters are surrendered to us.”

“No.”

“Perhaps you do not understand the peace terms we offer. We will not persecute the Knights in any way—”

“And the answer is still no.” Harry had to smile at the expression of perplexity that once again grew on the woman’s face. He was so glad that he had joined Tom’s side instead of the Order in this world, for many reasons, but right now the reason was that the subservience of the Order members would have frustrated him. The Knights were bad enough when they acted even a fraction like this. “We will fight.”

“You will lose.”

“That might be,” Harry said quietly. “But you aren’t worried about losing at all, are you?”

“Our leader is the Minister for Magic,” the woman answered simply, and then turned around and walked back through the gate. Harry hastily stepped back himself and then Apparated to the Potter house. Peace terms for the emissaries held only as long as that peculiar fence existed.

Tom stepped up to him the minute Harry walked through the door, his eyes calm and intent. “What happened?”

“They offered leniency for the Knights if you and I would surrender to them. Except that she said ‘the Potters’ and acted as though one of them wasn’t standing right in front of her.” Harry shook his head and let Tom’s arm encircle his shoulder. “It was creepy. She didn’t act like she knew I was really the leader, either. She’d been supposedly ordered to negotiate the terms with one of the Knights.”

“That’s a sign that Dumbledore’s tightened his hold on them, then.” Tom was doing the same thing at the moment, squeezing Harry until Harry had to draw in a gasping breath, but Harry didn’t think it would be diplomatic to mention it. “Their brands mean that he can do various things like see through their eyes, and usually that’s all he does. But now he’ll be drawing in all their magic as well.”