Harry Potter and the Lighting Lord

Chapter 36

"I'm so glad I'm not an Auror anymore" said Sirius, stretching his arms. "There is no way I would want to risk my life by telling the Irish to stop celebrating. Oh, my poor wife. Sometimes I feel so bad for her."

Harry snorted. He completely agreed with his godfather. He looked at Astoria who was busy talking about the match to her bemused sister. He found it amusing that Daphne didn't care for Quidditch while Astoria loved it, even though she never played the game.

The next hour was spent eating slowly and chatting amidst laughter. Just when they decided to pack the tent and leave, they heard an explosion and screams outside. Harry and Daphne immediately got up, their wands in hand.

"Something is wrong" said Cyrus, looking out of the tent. His eyes went wide. "We're under attack. Tori, you're with me. Harry, Daphne, come with me, but if we're separated, head to the woods. You can Disapparate to the manor from there. Come on, let's move."

They got out of the tent, amidst screams of terror. Harry saw many people walking slowly, their wands aloft, with four bodies of the muggles high in the air, being tortured by the Cruciatus Curse. He recognised them immediately when they started firing more Cruciatus Curses at witches and wizards – Death Eaters.

Harry's blood boiled when he saw them attacking and torturing innocent children. "Daphne, try to find as many children as you can. Take them to safety. Use lethal spells; these bastards don't deserve mercy" he said, and walked towards the Death Eaters.

Harry twirled his wand, morphed into a man in his early twenties and started firing curses at them. The Death Eaters, who didn't expect any resistance, were quite shocked and pretty soon Harry was fighting five on one. He snarled as a Killing Curse came close to his body, though he was far too experienced to dodge it for it to do any damage. His power in the curses increased, and a red jet of light impacted one of the Death Eaters' arms. The man screamed in pain as Harry's Reductor curse cut off the man's arm. Harry created a large eagle of fire and one of the Death Easters was caught in it. Harry watched with satisfaction as it quickly burned through his clothes, and then took a bone breaking curse to the chest, courtesy of Harry. If the man remained without medical attention for long, he was as good as dead.

Suddenly, the Dark Mark was fired into the sky from the other side of the field. The Death Eaters took one look at it and quickly portkeyed away at once.

"Damn it!" snarled Harry. He wasn't able to put up Anti-Apparition and Anti-Portkey wards as he was duelling five at once. Besides, the Death Eaters were quite proficient with those wards, considering they used to put them up before an attack during the war.

He looked up and frowned when he saw the Dark Mark in the sky. He quickly ran to the place of the mark, hoping to catch whoever was behind it. When he approached there, he found a bunch of terrified children, being shouted at by a group of wizards. He tried to break through and it was quite dark, so he decided to get their attention.

"Expecto Patronum" he whispered. The giant thunderbird Patronus burst from the tip of his wand and stood next to him, emitting light and happiness. He went forwards with a calm expression on his face when he heard Barty Crouch shouting at the children "I'm asking you one final time! Who was it? Which one of you cast the Dark Mark in the sky?"

"Wow, talk about shifting blame on others instead of doing his job. Now where have I seen you do that before, Crouch?" said a voice.

The witches and wizards parted, and they saw a man who appeared to be in his twenties, with an enormous Patronus by his side. Nobody recognized him, but everyone could practically feel him oozing magical power as if towering over them all. They watched the man come forwards, and kneel in front of the bunch of terrified children as he asked gently "Don't worry about that bad man over there. You did nothing wrong. We would just like to ask some questions about that bad mark in the sky. Will you answer those for me?"