Chapter 24 - Burning
The Death Eaters started forward, and Harry went into action at once. Yanking out his wand, he held it to the closest Death Eater and yelled, "Stupify!"
A blinding light shot across the short distance to the Death Eater, but they all had their wands out.
"Infernio!" Harry shouted and a wall of fire streaked around in a circle around them, inclosing Ron, Hermione, Draco, and Harry.
Hermione yelled out a protecting curse and the fire blazed for a moment.
Harry looked at Draco wondering if he had anything to do with the fight, but the blond's face was frozen in fear, and Harry guessed that even Draco with a Death Eater father had no clue of the attack.
"Does the hat work?" Harry demanded. "Will it take us back to the manor?"
Draco shook his head mutely, and Ron said, "It was only meant to get you here. I'm sorry, Harry, really."
"I'll deal with both of you later," Harry promised the two boys before grabbing Hermione's hand. "Where's Luna?"
"She's at the Leaky Cauldron," Hermione whispered.
Curses blasted on outside of the circle of fire, but the wall of flames held.
"We only have a few more seconds," Hermione pulled herself up tall, clutching her wand. "Harry, what is our attack?"
In the space of half a second, all the training slammed into Harry: the nights spent evading curses, strengthening his body, reacting to ploys that threatened his safety – hundreds of fighting scenarios pounded into him over hours of hard, brutal work.
"We need a decoy – it's you, Draco."
"Harry," Hermione began, but Harry shook his head.
"They won't kill Draco, and he can pretend that we kidnapped him. I shove Draco to them, then we all spread out over Diagon Alley with the intent of meeting back at the inn in twenty minutes. Draco, you tell them we're going back to Hogwarts to get Dumbledore and the teachers. Ron and Hermione, stay together to direct them away from the inn. I'm going to get Luna. Whoever escapes first, find a way to send a message to Hogwarts and to the Manor, even if you have to use bystanders as messengers."
They all nodded. The flames had begun to die.
"We fight here in Diagon Alley and if it spills out on the streets of London, so be it," Harry decided. "The more attention we attract, the sooner the Ministry will send out their army to stop us and therefore help us."
"We're ready," Ron took Hermione's hand, and she smiled at him with the courage of a woman warrior: proud and resilient.
"Ready, go," Harry shoved Draco forward hard just as the fire died.
"Get them!" Draco yelled as he fell on his knees. "They're going to go warn Dumbledore."
Harry ran, slamming into one Death Eater and knocking him back. Four months of physical training paid off in that moment as Harry grabbed the wand of the next nearest Death Eater and holding each end of the wand, he broke it as he punched both knotted fists into his opponent.
He had to duck the next curse, but instinctively he shot his foot out as he went down, toppling the third Death Eater over.
"Crucio!" he heard someone shout.
Harry glanced up to see Hermione fall to the ground, screaming as her body shook with the tremors of the curse. Ron scooped her up and kept running, zigzagging back and forth.
Harry saw Draco, the blond frozen in horror at the expression on Harry's face, but Harry was beyond caring. Hermione's screams rang through his ears, and he could feel the magic mounting in his chest, an untamed beast of rage and fury. He grabbed a fourth Death Eater, grabbing by the wrist and elbow, and Harry brought his knee up as he forced the arm down.
He heard and felt the bone break, and the man screamed, but Harry spun him around, wrapping his hand around the man's throat. He pointed his wand to the man's throat.
"You take one step towards us, and I blow his head open," Harry promised. "I don't take attacks from weak, pathetic Death Eaters anymore. You hide behind masks and throw curses at us like children playing wizards-and-dragons. I'm not wasting my energy on you anymore. You tell Voldemort that if he wants me dead, he better have the balls to come face me himself and fight me straight-on. Otherwise, I'm breaking your bones one by one and sending you back to him like a box of broken matches."
"We'll fight you here," a Death Eater threatened. "You can't hold us all off."
"I have enough power to make this entire street explode," Harry's voice was cold and deadly. "You don't think I would sacrifice myself to destroy all of you? You obviously haven't been watching me the last few years."
"We will get you," a female Death Eater spoke, and Harry was certain he recognized the voice.
"I'll tell you what, Bellatrix," Harry said. "Once I kill Voldemort, you and I can have it out on the battlefield where I can strangle you and watch you die just like the weak bitch you are."
His taunting worked. She shrieked and raised her wand at him, but Harry pushed his whimpering captive forward, raising a foot to slam into the back of the Death Eater in a vicious kick that sent the broken man sprawling. Harry raised his wand and shouted out an exploding curse that ripped a hole in the wall behind him. It was vaguely reminiscent of the time he tore a hole in Snape's study wall last summer, but this time, Harry ran into the hole before the dust and debris could settle.
He kept running, blowing holes in the wall as he went, a bizarre way of free-running or Parkoy in which he simply removed objects in his way rather than run over them. As he ran through houses and shops, people yelled at him, but the dozen trailing Death Eaters alarmed everyone far more than Harry's antics. He glanced out the window at one time, and could see turmoil out on the streets.
"You're pathetic!" He shouted back at his pursuers. "Slow and stupid. You think Voldemort could come up with a better army than this pack of misfits."
A death curse whizzed over his head, but Harry dove left. He dashed three huge steps and jumped, slamming into the front window of a clothing store. Jumping through glass was a new sensation for Harry, and before he could decide if it felt too weird, his feet slammed onto the street of Diagon Alley and he was running again.
The melting snow was slippery, but Harry had practiced in snow before. He remembered several unpleasant nights when Snape had frozen the floor of the practice room in the dungeon and scattered snow everywhere before making Harry dash around it, chased by Bludgers and biting dragonflies the size of cricket balls. Harry had soon learned that running through slippery snow was all a matter of propelling himself forward, going so fast that any slipping began another way of pushing forward faster. He felt certain that he could run up the side of Hogwarts' steepest roof covered in ice and not fall.
The Death Eaters tried to follow him, but they were adults relying on magic to fight and Harry was a teenage boy who had been ruthlessly trained by a power-hungry potion master. Speed was on Harry's side, and he darted into the other side of the street and started blowing holes into the shops on that side before running through the rumble.
He had almost reached the inn when Harry whirled around and fired a spell at the hole he had just made: "Repario."
The wall resealed itself, blocking out the Death Eaters still in pursuit. Harry dashed out into the street and ducked into the next building, running fast through all the chaos and screaming in the street as all the wizards and witches panicked.
"All right, all right," Harry drew in one long breath and blew it out hard. "Think. Think, Potter, think."
He had nothing with him other than his wand, clothes, and a winter coat. His wand looked fine though his clothes were coated with dust, snow, and grime. He had dropped his broom back in the woods before he had touched the portkey.
"Improvise," Harry shrugged off his coat. He was standing in a cauldron store, empty of course, but he grabbed the tan tablecloth off a display table. Harry tucked his wand in the leather wand holder that Ron had given him for his birthday, the holder that Harry had started wearing in his early training days as it never let his wand slip loose as he ran. He looped the tablecloth over his head and shoulders like a cloak.
He went out into the street hunching over and running into the crowd of screaming people.
"Who's attacking us?" a woman shrieked beside him. "Who is it? Who is it?"
"Death Eaters and Dementors," Harry lowered his voice to a growl as he hobbled along. "Run, run for your lives."
The chaos increased, people banging into each other and grabbing each other to demand what was going on, but Harry used the erratic movements to keep going forward, jerking back and forth to navigate around people.
Screaming broke out behind him at a higher level, and Harry knew that the Death Eaters were in the street now, looking for him.
Harry kept his hobbling pace, determined not to make a run for the inn. Twenty steps more, and he would be inside. Five steps closer, and he slipped his wand out. He pointed it to the side and whispered, "Serpensortia."
A six-foot cobra shot out of his wand and hit the snow-splattered ground.
"Move and intimidate," Harry whispered to it in Parceltongue.
The snake hissed, and the screaming chaos rose to a frightening decibel as people began to panic that the Dark Lord was coming to reap souls.
Harry ran into the inn and started for the stairs. He went up three flights of stairs and paused at the third door he found closed. Lifting up his right foot, he kicked out with his dragon-hide boots, boots that Snape had bought him so Harry would finally get rid of his dirty sneakers though Harry had just hid them under his bed. But these boots were strong and heavy, and the lock splintered through the wood as the door flew open.
The room was empty, but Harry flung the tablecloth on the bed and started grabbing items that he could use as weapons: a heavy brass candlestick, a bottle of firewhiskey, a folded sheet, and two legs of a wooden chair that Harry broke against the wall to shatter into pieces. In deft, precise knots, he tied the items into a bundle and twisted the loose ends until he could tie them around his chest, turning the bundle into a backpack.
He ran out into the hallway and shouted "Luna! Luna, where are you?"
No answer came, so Harry ran up to the next floor of rooms. "Luna?"
"Harry?" Luna stepped out at the end of the hall, her eyes wide in her small face. "Harry, what is going on?"
"We're under attack. Stay near me," Harry ordered, motioning to his side. "Do you have your wand?"
Luna pulled it out.
"Keep your shoulder next to mine and move with me," Harry pulled her close. "If we get separated, find somewhere to hide where no one will find you and wait. Wait for hours if you have to."
"I plan to fight beside you."
"I want you safe and alive at the end of the fight," Harry insisted. "We're going down the stairs slowly."
They made it down to the next level, but someone was coming up the stairs. Harry pulled Luna into the room he had broken into, and they flattened themselves against the wall, waiting.
"Please, Ron, don't go so fast," Hermione's voice pleaded.
"I'm fine," Ron wheezed.
Harry leaned out of the room and waved them both in. Hermione held her left arm against her chest; her arm was limp and hanging at an odd angle. But Ron's face was red and swollen, and Harry could see the long bleeding gash on the right side that ran from his nose all the way across to his right ear.
"We gave them a good chase," Ron leaned back against the wall, gasping. "After they tortured her with Crucio, I carried her a few feet. But they were right behind us. Then Hermione found the strength to pull half a building down on them. But her arm's broken and one curse hit my face."
"Luna, find another sheet to make a sling," Harry said. "Hermione, we're going to tie your arm up until we can get you to Madame Pomfrey or to St. Mungo's. Ron, I want you to stay with the girls while I go out to fight."
"Hell, no," Hermione lifted her head up even as she grimaced with pain. "We fight together."
"Just like always," Ron nodded.
"You need us, Harry," Luna said softly as she ripped the sheet in half.
"No, I'm faster without you. Snape's been training me, and you would just slow me down."
"No," Hermione held her broken arm out with her good arm, her face set, "we got you this far. Everything we've been through – we always were a team. You, me, and Ron."
"We can add Luna and Draco if you like," Ron said, "but we fight together. You can lead, but we'll be right behind you, watching your back."
"You're injured," Harry gave it his last shot. "If you get hurt worse –"
"If we fall out there, you leave us behind," Ron evenly met Harry's gaze. "You go on and finish it. That way we won't die in vain."
For a horrible second, Harry felt his eyes prickle at Ron's loyalty, at his friend's unwavering faith. Before he could say anything, they heard more footsteps and Draco's call, "Harry? Ron? Anyone?"
"Here," Harry waved to him, and Draco ran into the room.
"Why are you all sitting here? A war has started. The Death Eaters are all here. The Mark is in the sky. Everyone is running for their lives. Guess I was a big enough idiot to come back."
"What do we do?" Hermione ducked her head so Luna could loop the sling around her neck, pulling her bandaged arm against her chest. "Harry, what's our plan?"
"I just need a minute," he said. "Just a second to figure this out."
"So pretty," Luna stepped away from Hermione and stared right at the lit candelabra. "I love the way the flame keeps burning and burning, hot and bright. That's the thing about light, you know – it doesn't have to chase away the darkness. It simply exists and darkness disappears."
"Harry?" Ron raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"She's right," Harry nodded. "It's the only way."
"What's the only way?" Draco asked. "Do you always talk in code like this?"
"The fire," Harry nodded towards the flames. "We set Diagon Alley on fire."
Ron's jaw dropped open.
"Starting with the Leaky Cauldron," Harry went on. "We set it on fire and we either fight on the street or we take it out into London. No more hiding. We force them out into the light."
Luna held up her wand, lazily waving it in the air. "Incendio," she said softly, almost dreamily.
The bed caught on fire.
Hermione pointed out her wand with her good hand. "Engorgio."
The bed and the four posts and the curtains and the wall caught on fire.
"We go in pairs, setting fire and enlarging it," Harry said. "Luna and Draco, Hermione and Ron. I'll keep lookout and gather weapons."
They went down the hall, casting the spells. Two minutes later, the whole hallway blazed with flames, the heat impressive as it came closer and closer.
They ran downstairs, into the main room of the Leaky Cauldron.
"Let me," Draco aimed his wand at the bar where a wine rack was packed with various bottles and flagons. "Incendio!"
The spell slammed through the room as the alcohol caught fire and blew glass into the air. Harry had grabbed a table and held it up to shield them from the explosion, but he felt the hot air sweep over his hands.
Luna and Hermione cast spells to spread the flames fast, but Harry slipped off the bundle on his back and drew out the two broken chair legs. "Here," he gave one to Ron and one to Draco, "tie strips of cloth to the end of these and pour alcohol," Harry uncorked the bottle, "on the cloth. Then you have the fire and we can spend all our magic on building the fire."
The room was so hot Harry could barely breathe, but he helped Ron and Draco fix the chair legs.
They all huddled together as they stepped outside into the cold air.
The streets were deserted. Broken carts and scattered papers lay over the snow and mud that caked the stone streets. Windows were broken; chunks of wall lay fallen in dust. Far down the street, Harry could see the gap where Hermione must have toppled the building. Several animals lay dead. A severed arm was lying on the ground and a trail of blood followed it.
"Where is everyone?" Hermione asked.
Harry could feel the heat at his back. He shoved down the nagging voice inside that implied it was a mistake to set the inn on fire. This was no time to start doubting himself.
"Keep burning," he told his friends. "They're here somewhere, waiting for us."
Ron and Draco had barely started burning down the next two shops when dark shapes appeared at the end of the street.
Death Eaters – at least fifty of them – and at the center, tall and ugly, Voldemort.
Harry tightened his grip on his wand. So low that only he could hear it, he said, "I make my own destiny. And I choose to fight."
He took a step forward.
Then all around him, sharp snaps filled the air. Tonks was beside him, then Lupin. Dumbledore appeared and with him McGonagall. Arthur and Molly Weasley, Neville, Seamus, Dean, Ginny, Oliver Wood, more Hogwarts teachers, and then a score of people whom Harry had never seen before.
Right in front of the hotel, Snape Apparated. Moretta arrived beside him a second later.
Moretta pointed her wand at her face and said, "Finite Incantatum."
Like paper crumbling to ash in fire, her hard beauty disappeared, and she grew older and more familiar. And then Harry found himself staring at Augusta Longbottom, Neville's grandmother.
"We end this, for my children," Augusta wore an expression of calm, murderous rage as she stood beside Snape.
Harry turned back to the approaching Death Eaters. He had a whole army behind him that evenly matched the number of his enemy.
Behind his army, the roof of the Leaky Cauldron fell in, sending sparks and waves of heat across Diagon Alley.
A blinding light shot across the short distance to the Death Eater, but they all had their wands out.
"Infernio!" Harry shouted and a wall of fire streaked around in a circle around them, inclosing Ron, Hermione, Draco, and Harry.
Hermione yelled out a protecting curse and the fire blazed for a moment.
Harry looked at Draco wondering if he had anything to do with the fight, but the blond's face was frozen in fear, and Harry guessed that even Draco with a Death Eater father had no clue of the attack.
"Does the hat work?" Harry demanded. "Will it take us back to the manor?"
Draco shook his head mutely, and Ron said, "It was only meant to get you here. I'm sorry, Harry, really."
"I'll deal with both of you later," Harry promised the two boys before grabbing Hermione's hand. "Where's Luna?"
"She's at the Leaky Cauldron," Hermione whispered.
Curses blasted on outside of the circle of fire, but the wall of flames held.
"We only have a few more seconds," Hermione pulled herself up tall, clutching her wand. "Harry, what is our attack?"
In the space of half a second, all the training slammed into Harry: the nights spent evading curses, strengthening his body, reacting to ploys that threatened his safety – hundreds of fighting scenarios pounded into him over hours of hard, brutal work.
"We need a decoy – it's you, Draco."
"Harry," Hermione began, but Harry shook his head.
"They won't kill Draco, and he can pretend that we kidnapped him. I shove Draco to them, then we all spread out over Diagon Alley with the intent of meeting back at the inn in twenty minutes. Draco, you tell them we're going back to Hogwarts to get Dumbledore and the teachers. Ron and Hermione, stay together to direct them away from the inn. I'm going to get Luna. Whoever escapes first, find a way to send a message to Hogwarts and to the Manor, even if you have to use bystanders as messengers."
They all nodded. The flames had begun to die.
"We fight here in Diagon Alley and if it spills out on the streets of London, so be it," Harry decided. "The more attention we attract, the sooner the Ministry will send out their army to stop us and therefore help us."
"We're ready," Ron took Hermione's hand, and she smiled at him with the courage of a woman warrior: proud and resilient.
"Ready, go," Harry shoved Draco forward hard just as the fire died.
"Get them!" Draco yelled as he fell on his knees. "They're going to go warn Dumbledore."
Harry ran, slamming into one Death Eater and knocking him back. Four months of physical training paid off in that moment as Harry grabbed the wand of the next nearest Death Eater and holding each end of the wand, he broke it as he punched both knotted fists into his opponent.
He had to duck the next curse, but instinctively he shot his foot out as he went down, toppling the third Death Eater over.
"Crucio!" he heard someone shout.
Harry glanced up to see Hermione fall to the ground, screaming as her body shook with the tremors of the curse. Ron scooped her up and kept running, zigzagging back and forth.
Harry saw Draco, the blond frozen in horror at the expression on Harry's face, but Harry was beyond caring. Hermione's screams rang through his ears, and he could feel the magic mounting in his chest, an untamed beast of rage and fury. He grabbed a fourth Death Eater, grabbing by the wrist and elbow, and Harry brought his knee up as he forced the arm down.
He heard and felt the bone break, and the man screamed, but Harry spun him around, wrapping his hand around the man's throat. He pointed his wand to the man's throat.
"You take one step towards us, and I blow his head open," Harry promised. "I don't take attacks from weak, pathetic Death Eaters anymore. You hide behind masks and throw curses at us like children playing wizards-and-dragons. I'm not wasting my energy on you anymore. You tell Voldemort that if he wants me dead, he better have the balls to come face me himself and fight me straight-on. Otherwise, I'm breaking your bones one by one and sending you back to him like a box of broken matches."
"We'll fight you here," a Death Eater threatened. "You can't hold us all off."
"I have enough power to make this entire street explode," Harry's voice was cold and deadly. "You don't think I would sacrifice myself to destroy all of you? You obviously haven't been watching me the last few years."
"We will get you," a female Death Eater spoke, and Harry was certain he recognized the voice.
"I'll tell you what, Bellatrix," Harry said. "Once I kill Voldemort, you and I can have it out on the battlefield where I can strangle you and watch you die just like the weak bitch you are."
His taunting worked. She shrieked and raised her wand at him, but Harry pushed his whimpering captive forward, raising a foot to slam into the back of the Death Eater in a vicious kick that sent the broken man sprawling. Harry raised his wand and shouted out an exploding curse that ripped a hole in the wall behind him. It was vaguely reminiscent of the time he tore a hole in Snape's study wall last summer, but this time, Harry ran into the hole before the dust and debris could settle.
He kept running, blowing holes in the wall as he went, a bizarre way of free-running or Parkoy in which he simply removed objects in his way rather than run over them. As he ran through houses and shops, people yelled at him, but the dozen trailing Death Eaters alarmed everyone far more than Harry's antics. He glanced out the window at one time, and could see turmoil out on the streets.
"You're pathetic!" He shouted back at his pursuers. "Slow and stupid. You think Voldemort could come up with a better army than this pack of misfits."
A death curse whizzed over his head, but Harry dove left. He dashed three huge steps and jumped, slamming into the front window of a clothing store. Jumping through glass was a new sensation for Harry, and before he could decide if it felt too weird, his feet slammed onto the street of Diagon Alley and he was running again.
The melting snow was slippery, but Harry had practiced in snow before. He remembered several unpleasant nights when Snape had frozen the floor of the practice room in the dungeon and scattered snow everywhere before making Harry dash around it, chased by Bludgers and biting dragonflies the size of cricket balls. Harry had soon learned that running through slippery snow was all a matter of propelling himself forward, going so fast that any slipping began another way of pushing forward faster. He felt certain that he could run up the side of Hogwarts' steepest roof covered in ice and not fall.
The Death Eaters tried to follow him, but they were adults relying on magic to fight and Harry was a teenage boy who had been ruthlessly trained by a power-hungry potion master. Speed was on Harry's side, and he darted into the other side of the street and started blowing holes into the shops on that side before running through the rumble.
He had almost reached the inn when Harry whirled around and fired a spell at the hole he had just made: "Repario."
The wall resealed itself, blocking out the Death Eaters still in pursuit. Harry dashed out into the street and ducked into the next building, running fast through all the chaos and screaming in the street as all the wizards and witches panicked.
"All right, all right," Harry drew in one long breath and blew it out hard. "Think. Think, Potter, think."
He had nothing with him other than his wand, clothes, and a winter coat. His wand looked fine though his clothes were coated with dust, snow, and grime. He had dropped his broom back in the woods before he had touched the portkey.
"Improvise," Harry shrugged off his coat. He was standing in a cauldron store, empty of course, but he grabbed the tan tablecloth off a display table. Harry tucked his wand in the leather wand holder that Ron had given him for his birthday, the holder that Harry had started wearing in his early training days as it never let his wand slip loose as he ran. He looped the tablecloth over his head and shoulders like a cloak.
He went out into the street hunching over and running into the crowd of screaming people.
"Who's attacking us?" a woman shrieked beside him. "Who is it? Who is it?"
"Death Eaters and Dementors," Harry lowered his voice to a growl as he hobbled along. "Run, run for your lives."
The chaos increased, people banging into each other and grabbing each other to demand what was going on, but Harry used the erratic movements to keep going forward, jerking back and forth to navigate around people.
Screaming broke out behind him at a higher level, and Harry knew that the Death Eaters were in the street now, looking for him.
Harry kept his hobbling pace, determined not to make a run for the inn. Twenty steps more, and he would be inside. Five steps closer, and he slipped his wand out. He pointed it to the side and whispered, "Serpensortia."
A six-foot cobra shot out of his wand and hit the snow-splattered ground.
"Move and intimidate," Harry whispered to it in Parceltongue.
The snake hissed, and the screaming chaos rose to a frightening decibel as people began to panic that the Dark Lord was coming to reap souls.
Harry ran into the inn and started for the stairs. He went up three flights of stairs and paused at the third door he found closed. Lifting up his right foot, he kicked out with his dragon-hide boots, boots that Snape had bought him so Harry would finally get rid of his dirty sneakers though Harry had just hid them under his bed. But these boots were strong and heavy, and the lock splintered through the wood as the door flew open.
The room was empty, but Harry flung the tablecloth on the bed and started grabbing items that he could use as weapons: a heavy brass candlestick, a bottle of firewhiskey, a folded sheet, and two legs of a wooden chair that Harry broke against the wall to shatter into pieces. In deft, precise knots, he tied the items into a bundle and twisted the loose ends until he could tie them around his chest, turning the bundle into a backpack.
He ran out into the hallway and shouted "Luna! Luna, where are you?"
No answer came, so Harry ran up to the next floor of rooms. "Luna?"
"Harry?" Luna stepped out at the end of the hall, her eyes wide in her small face. "Harry, what is going on?"
"We're under attack. Stay near me," Harry ordered, motioning to his side. "Do you have your wand?"
Luna pulled it out.
"Keep your shoulder next to mine and move with me," Harry pulled her close. "If we get separated, find somewhere to hide where no one will find you and wait. Wait for hours if you have to."
"I plan to fight beside you."
"I want you safe and alive at the end of the fight," Harry insisted. "We're going down the stairs slowly."
They made it down to the next level, but someone was coming up the stairs. Harry pulled Luna into the room he had broken into, and they flattened themselves against the wall, waiting.
"Please, Ron, don't go so fast," Hermione's voice pleaded.
"I'm fine," Ron wheezed.
Harry leaned out of the room and waved them both in. Hermione held her left arm against her chest; her arm was limp and hanging at an odd angle. But Ron's face was red and swollen, and Harry could see the long bleeding gash on the right side that ran from his nose all the way across to his right ear.
"We gave them a good chase," Ron leaned back against the wall, gasping. "After they tortured her with Crucio, I carried her a few feet. But they were right behind us. Then Hermione found the strength to pull half a building down on them. But her arm's broken and one curse hit my face."
"Luna, find another sheet to make a sling," Harry said. "Hermione, we're going to tie your arm up until we can get you to Madame Pomfrey or to St. Mungo's. Ron, I want you to stay with the girls while I go out to fight."
"Hell, no," Hermione lifted her head up even as she grimaced with pain. "We fight together."
"Just like always," Ron nodded.
"You need us, Harry," Luna said softly as she ripped the sheet in half.
"No, I'm faster without you. Snape's been training me, and you would just slow me down."
"No," Hermione held her broken arm out with her good arm, her face set, "we got you this far. Everything we've been through – we always were a team. You, me, and Ron."
"We can add Luna and Draco if you like," Ron said, "but we fight together. You can lead, but we'll be right behind you, watching your back."
"You're injured," Harry gave it his last shot. "If you get hurt worse –"
"If we fall out there, you leave us behind," Ron evenly met Harry's gaze. "You go on and finish it. That way we won't die in vain."
For a horrible second, Harry felt his eyes prickle at Ron's loyalty, at his friend's unwavering faith. Before he could say anything, they heard more footsteps and Draco's call, "Harry? Ron? Anyone?"
"Here," Harry waved to him, and Draco ran into the room.
"Why are you all sitting here? A war has started. The Death Eaters are all here. The Mark is in the sky. Everyone is running for their lives. Guess I was a big enough idiot to come back."
"What do we do?" Hermione ducked her head so Luna could loop the sling around her neck, pulling her bandaged arm against her chest. "Harry, what's our plan?"
"I just need a minute," he said. "Just a second to figure this out."
"So pretty," Luna stepped away from Hermione and stared right at the lit candelabra. "I love the way the flame keeps burning and burning, hot and bright. That's the thing about light, you know – it doesn't have to chase away the darkness. It simply exists and darkness disappears."
"Harry?" Ron raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"She's right," Harry nodded. "It's the only way."
"What's the only way?" Draco asked. "Do you always talk in code like this?"
"The fire," Harry nodded towards the flames. "We set Diagon Alley on fire."
Ron's jaw dropped open.
"Starting with the Leaky Cauldron," Harry went on. "We set it on fire and we either fight on the street or we take it out into London. No more hiding. We force them out into the light."
Luna held up her wand, lazily waving it in the air. "Incendio," she said softly, almost dreamily.
The bed caught on fire.
Hermione pointed out her wand with her good hand. "Engorgio."
The bed and the four posts and the curtains and the wall caught on fire.
"We go in pairs, setting fire and enlarging it," Harry said. "Luna and Draco, Hermione and Ron. I'll keep lookout and gather weapons."
They went down the hall, casting the spells. Two minutes later, the whole hallway blazed with flames, the heat impressive as it came closer and closer.
They ran downstairs, into the main room of the Leaky Cauldron.
"Let me," Draco aimed his wand at the bar where a wine rack was packed with various bottles and flagons. "Incendio!"
The spell slammed through the room as the alcohol caught fire and blew glass into the air. Harry had grabbed a table and held it up to shield them from the explosion, but he felt the hot air sweep over his hands.
Luna and Hermione cast spells to spread the flames fast, but Harry slipped off the bundle on his back and drew out the two broken chair legs. "Here," he gave one to Ron and one to Draco, "tie strips of cloth to the end of these and pour alcohol," Harry uncorked the bottle, "on the cloth. Then you have the fire and we can spend all our magic on building the fire."
The room was so hot Harry could barely breathe, but he helped Ron and Draco fix the chair legs.
They all huddled together as they stepped outside into the cold air.
The streets were deserted. Broken carts and scattered papers lay over the snow and mud that caked the stone streets. Windows were broken; chunks of wall lay fallen in dust. Far down the street, Harry could see the gap where Hermione must have toppled the building. Several animals lay dead. A severed arm was lying on the ground and a trail of blood followed it.
"Where is everyone?" Hermione asked.
Harry could feel the heat at his back. He shoved down the nagging voice inside that implied it was a mistake to set the inn on fire. This was no time to start doubting himself.
"Keep burning," he told his friends. "They're here somewhere, waiting for us."
Ron and Draco had barely started burning down the next two shops when dark shapes appeared at the end of the street.
Death Eaters – at least fifty of them – and at the center, tall and ugly, Voldemort.
Harry tightened his grip on his wand. So low that only he could hear it, he said, "I make my own destiny. And I choose to fight."
He took a step forward.
Then all around him, sharp snaps filled the air. Tonks was beside him, then Lupin. Dumbledore appeared and with him McGonagall. Arthur and Molly Weasley, Neville, Seamus, Dean, Ginny, Oliver Wood, more Hogwarts teachers, and then a score of people whom Harry had never seen before.
Right in front of the hotel, Snape Apparated. Moretta arrived beside him a second later.
Moretta pointed her wand at her face and said, "Finite Incantatum."
Like paper crumbling to ash in fire, her hard beauty disappeared, and she grew older and more familiar. And then Harry found himself staring at Augusta Longbottom, Neville's grandmother.
"We end this, for my children," Augusta wore an expression of calm, murderous rage as she stood beside Snape.
Harry turned back to the approaching Death Eaters. He had a whole army behind him that evenly matched the number of his enemy.
Behind his army, the roof of the Leaky Cauldron fell in, sending sparks and waves of heat across Diagon Alley.