All Hail the Dark Lord, Or Something Idiotic Like That

A New Friend pt2

A/N: Not my story! Original available on ao3

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Harry hissed as the knife slipped and he cut a gash in his hand. "Merlin!" Hermione jumped up.

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Harry just rolled his eyes at her and tapped his hand with his ebony wand, healing the cut, and then tossing the beetles he'd just been slicing into the rubbish bin since they were ruined. "It's nothing, Hermione," he gave her a dry look. "The Death Eaters...they...well, they thought I could help them raise Voldemort back to life. Somehow, they had gotten some actually good information that I had something that would allow me to do that, but they didn't know that I no longer had this capability anymore after the war," Harry said through gritted teeth, dumping out another pile of beetles angrily onto the cutting board.

"If I still had the ability, there was a point in there, I would have done it..." He added quietly on at the end before shaking his head and focusing back on the potion. How they had learned about the horcrux in him, he still had never figured out. It's not like he could ask them after everything was said and done anyway.

Percy stepped back over to him just to put his hand comfortingly on Harry's back. "Harry said he's having you work on Occlumency?" He asked, knowing they couldn't tell the teens anything about the horcruxes until they had working shields.

"I've started constructing some shields," Hermione said before turning a proud look to Ron. "Ron's almost there. A few more days, and he'll probably catch up to me."

Ron turned pink and shrugged at the compliment. "Er...I don't want people in my mind...I'm motivated is all..."

"Right, well, we'll tell you more once you have those shields," Percy turned his own proud look on his brother, surprised and impressed at how he'd stuck to it.

"From what future Ron told me, Luna did something..." he looked to Harry, but Harry didn't seem able to add anything into the conversation anymore. "She did something to help Harry get at least slightly free...somehow they escaped, and we just know Harry showed up in the lobby at St. Mungo's looking like a poorly revived inferius and screaming as he held Luna. The healers rushed to them, but Luna didn't make it. She was too far gone when they got there."

"Oh, Harry..." Hermione looked at her friend with horror in her eyes while Ron just looked completely sick.

"You two and Neville had been going crazy looking for them," Percy continued, still rubbing circles on Harry's back. "Ron and Neville were junior aurors at the time and were able to get enough information from Harry before he was placed in a medically induced coma to find where they had been kept."

"Good...so we arrested the bastards," Ron growled, impressed that Neville ended up in the aurors but sick at the thought of what his friend must have gone through.