As he debated on whether to interfere, the firefight escalated as both sides begun using spells of increasing destructiveness. Fireballs and killing curses gave way to sprays of acid and venom, only to be replaced by lightning storms and deadly pressure waves. Harry had seen some of those spells before, used on the battlefields of his time, and he knew the results, and they weren't pretty. He had inched his way close enough to be able to vaguely make out the forms of the combatants. Who are the good guys? he mused as he watched the devastation unfolding. Either way, I can't let this keep going. If they take any longer, they'll start blowing the entire bloody street to pieces!
Leaning out of his cover, Harry fired a series of stunners at both parties. He didn't want to use any of the more dangerous spells he knew yet, there was no reason to if he could just knock them all out. He realized he'd made a mistake, though, when both parties noticed that someone was shooting at them from the sidelines. Figuring that it was a sniper hired by the other side, both parties opened fire on his position, causing Harry to scramble back into cover as the concrete he was hiding behind shuddered from the spell impacts.
"Bloody hell," Harry swore. He began poking his head over his cover to take a look, but pulled it back just in time to avoid a series of nasty-looking hexes that flew overhead. The constant drumming of spells against his cover and the sounds of crumbling rock told him that he was well and truly pinned down - and that his makeshift cover wouldn't last forever. From the sounds of it, they wouldn't get tired of shooting at him anytime soon, either, and he figured that if they were smart, he could be expecting a flanking attack anytime… now .
" Stupefy !" he roared as he threw himself to the side. The blasting hex tore a fist-sized chunk of concrete out of the block he was hiding behind, but his return stunner caught the shooter square in the chest, causing him to crumple to the ground. Harry rolled to his feet, adrenaline pumping through him. His eyes darted across the road when he found himself out in the open. He hesitated for a brief second to note the location of the incoming fire, then made a mad dash for the nearest available cover, throwing himself behind a set of wooden barrels that contained something he didn't want to identify. He rolled to the side as the barrels begun exploding under a withering barrage of fire.
"All right, you want war, you've got it," he muttered to himself as he reached the last barrel. Hoping that whoever was shooting at him was still where he remembered them to be at, he silently counted down as his cover was reduced to rubble. Just my luck that I get to pick a fight with two groups of people who stop shooting at each other, just so they can shoot at me, instead, he thought darkly.
The last barrel splintered as a Reducto hit it, and Harry threw himself into a forward roll, his wand flicking through the air as he went, firing back with a series of low-powered hexes and jinxes that would hopefully send the opposition scurrying for cover themselves, and buy him some breathing space. He sprung back to his feet, sweeping his wand wide to raise a wall of flame between him and the people shooting at him, and then dashed to the side as it obscured their view of him.
Remembering his lessons in tactics that Moody had insisted on drilling into him, Harry made his way around until he was almost behind one of the groups, covered by the smoke and flames of the fire he'd just conjured. Anyone stupid enough to exchange spells with a large group of hostiles, the old auror had taught him, was just asking to be killed. The trick was to outflank them, use superior mobility so that they couldn't use their numbers to their advantage, and then take them all out with one heck of a spell. That was what they had trained Harry in, for the war.
During the short-lived war with Voldemort in his time, there hadn't been enough time to run him through the extensive training regimen that would make him a fully qualified auror, and the skill and experience of an expert duelist he would only acquire with time, something they were sorely lacking at that point, so both Dumbledore and Moody had agreed that it would be best to take advantage of his innate talent and raw magical power to get him through battles. Since he was a prime target for Voldemort's forces, he had been mostly kept in reserve, only to be brought out for the really big battles that could not be avoided, or for missions where he was the only one available.
Because they were pressed for time, Harry had been forced to focus his studies on a select few spells that took advantage of his above-average magical power, most of which were heavy hitters that were sure to put an opponent down for good. Since he was often deployed in mass battles, it had been prudent, and advantageous, for him to learn spells that were capable of taking out multiple opponents, or target large areas, since he was one of the few wizards who had the power to pull of those sorts of spells. That lack of variety usually didn't bother him, since he really didn't see the difference in using a fireball or a flame arrow, or a spray of acid compared to a disintegration curse. On the battlefield where chaos reigned, he was more than capable of holding his own.
It was somewhat of a handicap in duels, though, where his opponents could focus on barraging him with a much wider variety of spells that forced him on the defensive. He had usually relied on his raw talent and magical power to pull him through those instances, something that worked quite well when dealing with the average Death Eater who thought that the Boy-Who-Lived was an easy prey. It did, however, fail when faced with vastly more experienced opponents like Dumbledore or Moody. While Dumbledore had a leg up on Harry in terms of power still, it was the headmaster's experience that allowed him to repeatedly defeat Harry in their practice duels, despite the fact that he favored transfiguration spells. Bellatrix was another opponent he had trouble fighting regularly, mainly because she was so insane that her fighting style was near unpredictable, and she was able to shrug off debilitating blows without even having to try, something he attributed to her long exposure to pain curses.
Harry smirked as the smoke cleared with a wave of his wand, and he found himself staring at the exposed backs of one group of hostiles, while the other was looking at the place where, seconds ago, a raging fire had blistered in the air. He raised his wand, putting much more force behind the spell than it was designed for. " Pulsus !"
The overpowered banishing hex blasted into the combatants closest to him first, tossing them though the air, and into the second group of fighters. He had been careful enough to tone down the power to something that would cause bruises, but wouldn't kill them - he had found out early on that even the simplest spells could be lethal, if one put enough force behind them. He raised his wand as the majority of the people tried to scramble to their feet, but the distinct pop of multiple apparitions prevented that as the aurors arrived. He quickly sheathed his wand, stepped back, and made sure to keep his hands clearly visible.
Those who hadn't managed to make it back to their feet were roughly hauled up by the aurors as all of them were rounded up by the Ministry's forces. It took them a few seconds to realize the precarious position they were now in, but one by one, wands clattered to the floor and hands raised into the air.
Good thing I picked up my documentation, Harry thought in quiet amusement at the visibly upset visage of the people that were now being placed under arrest. The aurors, quickly supported by Ministry officials, soon got around to questioning the few bystanders that were left, and Harry groaned as he watched a number of them chatter rapidly and gesture towards him when asked by the aurors. I should've left when I had the chance, he groaned mentally. Attention from the Ministry was something he really didn't need right now.
A half-dozen aurors turned around and approached Harry, their wands drawn and aimed at his chest. He smiled cheerfully and raised his hands in surrender. Leading them, much to Harry's chagrin, was someone he had hoped to avoid for the time being. Twenty-five years younger, with his right leg still intact, a little less grizzled, and without a magical eye, the man leading the squad approaching Harry was still unmistakable: Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody.
He took a moment to give Harry a quick once-over, and then turned to the aurors following him. "Go help the others with those idiots in the mud over there," Moody growled. He waited a moment until they had left, then took a few steps towards Harry, eyeing him very, very carefully.
Harry knew that he was being evaluated as a potential opponent by the man who would become his teacher in the future. Knowing that he needed to appear as non-threatening and uninteresting as possible, he decided to let the auror take the lead. No point in attracting unwarranted attention now.
"What's your name?" Moody finally asked.
"Ashworth. Harry Ashworth," Harry replied neutrally.
Moody glanced up sharply, and Harry had to fight down the urge to flinch away from that piercing gaze. "You're the one who took down all of those… people… back there?" he asked with unmistakable disdain for the combatants, who were in the process of being rounded up and transported to Ministry holding cells.
Harry took a moment to study the people who'd been fighting before responding. None of them appeared to be Death Eaters - they lacked the distinctive masks and black robes, for one. In fact, they didn't even appear to be any sort of trained fighting force. Instead, they were young and Harry guessed, barely out of school. Probably the restless sort that was convinced of their own superiority, spoiled, or dissatisfied with current affairs. The sort Voldemort never had any trouble recruiting, he mused. Those who haven't found a place in society, and blame it on others.
With some surprise he realized that Bellatrix might actually fit into that category, which was ironic. For some reason, he couldn't quite picture her in the same group as Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle. And there was no denying that these… goons? Hooligans? Whatever they were, Malfoy and his posse would have fit right in with them. Well, Harry thought with quiet amusement, Malfoy is probably a little better dressed that them .
Was this what Bellatrix had meant when she had said with her dying breath that she had just "gone with the flow?" Could Pansy Parkinson or Millicent Bulstrode have become the next Bellatrix Lestrange? It seemed so unlikely. For starters, while he hated the Bellatrix of his time, he quite readily acknowledged her skill, talent, and power, all of which took time and effort to cultivate. He couldn't see the Slytherins of his time as willing to put in enough time and effort to become that skilled.
No, while Bellatrix may have fit in with those misfits currently being arrested from an ideological point of view, she certainly wouldn't have been part of these kinds of groups. For one, they were dressed atrociously, and looked - and smelled, now that he thought about it, and he was several dozen feet away! - like they desperately needed a bath. No, Bellatrix and her sort would probably have fit in with a more sophisticated group which comprised the more intelligent of the dissidents.
Harry returned his attention to Moody, a bit embarrassed when the auror had to clear his throat loudly to get his attention. "Sorry," he muttered, which the older man rewarded with a nonchalant shrug. "I wouldn't exactly say that I took them down. I just happened to be in the right place when I cast a banishing charm. I guess I got lucky that I caught that many, but I couldn't let them keep going. They'd probably still be fighting if you hadn't shown up."
Moody nodded quietly, and Harry could almost see the man thinking over all the possible holes and flaws in his explanation. He wasn't aware he had been holding his breath until he released it sharply when Moody nodded. "You got identification on you, son?" Moody finally asked, more pleasantly than Harry would have expected.
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